MY    BATTLES 
WITH  VICE 


BY 

VIRGINIA  BROOKS 

Author  of  "Little  Lost  Sister." 


NEW  YORK 
THE  MACAULAY  COMPANY 

1915 


Copyright,  1915,  by 
THE  MACAULAY  COMPANY 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

INTRODUCTION 7 

FOREWORD ,  9 

I    A  MOTHER'S  REQUEST 23 

II  I  FIND  WORK  AS  A  WAITRESS  ....  28 

III  I  BECOME  A  CLERK 44 

IV  THE  FIRST  CLEW 51 

V  NELLIE  DALY'S  MEAL  TICKET     ...  62 

VI     "BULL"  TEVIS 70 

VII     AT  THE  CAFE  SINISTER 78 

VIII  WHAT  HAPPENED  TO  MAIZIE      ...  85 

IX  THE  TRAIL  OF  WATCHFUL  JOHNNY  .     .  94 

X    THE  BEXELWAUM  BALL 107 

XI     HER  RETROSPECTION 117 

XII  QUEER  FISH  IN  THE  DEPTHS  ....  123 

XIII  TREFALKA  AND  STEVE 135 

XIV  THE  SCARLET  WEDDING  DRESS     .      .     .142 
XV    ANNIE'S  HUSBAND 151 

XVI     MARY  HOLDEN 160 

XVII  I  HUNT  A  JOB  ON  THE  STAGE      .      .      .165 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XVIII  THE  MIDNIGHT  CONVERSATION    .     .     .172 

XIX  GRAY  WOLF  AND  LOVE  PIRATE     .     .     .179 

XX  IN  MERCEDES'  APARTMENT     .      .     .     .187 

XXI  CARMEN  OF  THE  TORPEDO  CAFE  .     .     .196 

XXII     IKE  BLOSSOM 203 

XXIII  MAZELLE 210 

XXIV  "THE  CAFE" 217 

XXV    THE  ESCAPE 224 

XXVI    CONCLUSION 234 


INTRODUCTION 

"My  BATTLES  WITH  VICE"  is  the  story  of  the 
struggle  for  honor  and  virtue  of  the  girl  who 
must  work  to  live. 

It  is  the  story  of  thousands  who  have  foughr. 
the  battle  of  modern  industrial  life  and  lost 

Virginia  Brooks  is  the  girl,  who  single- 
handed  fought  the  forces  of  evil  in  West  Ham- 
mond, Illinois,  and  compelled  the  town  to 
clean  up.  It  was  she  who  drove  the  worst 
dives  in  Christendom  out  of  existence,  because, 
knowing  the  law,  she  fought  for  its  enforce- 
ment. 

This  story  is  written  by  a  young  woman 
reared  in  the  best  social  atmosphere,  whose 
desire  to  aid  her  less  fortunate  sisters  mani- 
fested itself  early  in  life. 

With  the  energy  and  eagerness  of  youth, 

7 


8  INTRODUCTION 

backed  by  the  foremost  philanthropic  interests 
in  Chicago,  she  sought  out  and  studied  at  first 
hand  the  problems  of  the  six-dollar-a-week 
working  girl — not  by  asking  questions,  but  by 
living  with  the  girl,  working  with  her  side  by 
side  for  the  same  wage,  experiencing  her 
temptations,  sharing  her  sufferings,  confront- 
ing her  problems. 

Virginia  Brooks  did  not  stop  there.  She 
followed  the  girl  who  had  fallen  to  those  p  re- 
car)  ous  crags  and  ledges  down  the  mountain- 
side, that  delay  the  final  plunge  into  the  abyss. 
In  the  amusement  resorts,  dance  halls  and  by- 
ways that  exit  all  in  one  direction,  she  learned 
the  lesson  of  the  ages  from  a  new  viewpoint— 
the  viewpoint  of  the  new  woman. 

THE  PUBLISHERS. 


FOREWORD 

THE  OLD  UNDERLYING  EVIL 

THE  social  evil  is  as  old  as  humanity.  As  far 
back  as  history  gives  any  record,  evidences  of 
its  existence  and  the  subsequent  terrible  traffic 
are  to  be  found.  From  savagery  to  modern 
civilization  women  have  been  slaves  to  the 
brute  that  lives  in  man.  They  have  been  cap- 
tured, sold  for  profit,  and  have  had  little  to 
say. 

The  Dark  Ages  are  replete  with  data  on  this 
sad,  shameful  phase  of  life.  The  dawn  of  the 
Christian  era,  with  its  accompanying  teaching 
of  purity  and  chastity,  introduced  extreme 
asceticism.  A  radical  stand  was  necessary 
where  civilization  had  apparently  gone  sex 
mad. 


io  FOREWORD 

After  Christianity  was  established  and  ex- 
treme persecution  of  the  Christians  had  ceased, 
a  general  laxity  developed  and  gradually  the 
old  conditions  returned.  During  the  Middle 
Ages  social  laxity  increased  with  astounding 
rapidity. 

Laws  framed  for  the  suppression  of  evil 
were  not  even  enforced.  One  has  but  to  read 
of  the  court  of  Louis  XIV  to  gather  an  idea 
of  the  condition  of  society  during  this  period. 
Such  royal  courts  set  the  example  and  loose- 
ness ran  through  all  grades  of  society. 

With  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury scientific  methods  were  devised  for 
handling  the  victims  of  this  evil  period. 
More  or  less  interest  was  aroused  in  the  bring- 
ing about  of  an  improved  condition  of  affairs. 
Some  effort  was  made  to  punish  defiance  of 
the  laws  of  decency.  For  the  first  time  the 
evil  was  reduced  to  negotiable  proportions. 

If  we  read  and  follow  the  course  of  society's 


FOREWORD  ii 

curse  through  past  ages,  we  may  be  inclined  to 
comfort  ourselves  with  the  reflection  that 
wickedness  is  past  and  done  away  with,  but 
this  is  far  from  being  the  truth  as  I  found  out. 
On  the  contrary,  here  in  free  America  condi- 
tions exist  that  have  never  been  surpassed  in 
any  age.  As  the  problem  faced  ages  that  are 
past,  so  it  faces  us  to-day. 

In  my  efforts  at  driving  out  criminality  from 
one  of  the  border  towns  of  Chicago  I  came 
face  to  face  with  some  shocking  truths.  I 
found  that  evil  and  vice  as  it  exists  in  the  small 
town  is  not  a  thing  apart,  depending  on  itself, 
but  is  actually  a  small  part  of  a  great  system. 

When  I  first  made  an  effort  to  break  down 
the  wall  of  defense  of  the  system  which  pro- 
tected evil  doers,  I  found  the  doors  of  justice 
gradually  closing  against  me.  I  found  myself 
beset  by  enemies  in  the  most  unlocked  for 
situations.  In  fact,  I  found  that  to  ask  that 
vice  be  stamped  out  was  to  stand  practically 


12  FOREWORD 

alone  unless  by  continued  effort  I  could  arouse 
sufficient  strength  of  public  sentiment  to  cow 
public  officials  into  decisive  action. 

I  have  been  amazed  and  horrified  at  the 
methods  employed  by  these  traders  in  human 
flesh  to  entice  and  induce  the  innocent  and  the 
unwary  into  the  nets  spread  for  their  unsus- 
pecting feet.  I  have  waxhed  over  and  over 
again  our  little  lost  sisters  making  their  first 
entree  to  the  speedway  of  despair.  One  by 
one  I  have  noted  the  causes,  the  enticements, 
the  inducements,  all  of  them  far  too  carefully 
planned  and  laid  to  be  observed  by  one  so  un- 
worldly as  the  poor  girl  who  gets  caught.  I 
have  censured  society  in  my  heart,  and  justly 
so.  The  fate  of  the  girl  adrift  is  to  be  laid 
directly  at  the  door  of  society.  Her  defeat 
and  destruction  is  the  price  society  makes  her 
pay. 

When  the  forces  of  good  are  brought  to  bear 
upon  these  trappers  and  wreckers  of  young 


FOREWORD  13 

girls,  I  have  watched  the  means  they  use  to 
secure  immunity  and  protection.  They  are 
safe  as  safety  itself,  unless  some  slip,  some 
accident,  happens  that  occasionally  brings  one 
of  them  to  tardy  justice.  I  have  seen  men 
held  high  in  public  estimation  come  to  the  de- 
fense of  these  vultures.  I  have  seen  them  use 
every  technicality,  every  unfair  advantage,  to 
keep  such  scoundrels  from  the  prison  doors, 
until  my  righteous  indignation  has  cried  out, 
"There  is  no  justice  in  the  courts.  The  laws 
are  framed  to  shelter  thieves.  No  man  gets 
his  just  due." 

Whispered  stories  arouse  my  curiosity. 
Once  more  I  watch.  Again  I  am  confronted 
with  the  system.  I  find  that  vice  is  a  trust— 
the  most  powerful,  the  most  elusive,  the  most 
evasive  in  the  world.  Not  the  victim  profits, 
but  the  exploiters.  Not  the  victim,  but  the 
landlords,  society  parasites,  dwellers  on  the 
boulevard. 


H  FOREWORD 

The  pay  envelopes  are  labeled  for  the  pro- 
curer, the  police,  the  politicians,  straight  on 
to  the  man  higher  up.  Shame  does  not  attend 
the  man  who  profits  from  such  a  source.  He 
is  the  smugly  successful  business  man  of  the 
twentieth  century.  The  girl  adrift  pays  the 
price.  Out  of  the  degradation  of  her  body 
and  the  damnation  of  her  soul  the  fat  philan- 
thropist delivers  his  dole  to  charity. 

I  have  seen  the  beginning  of  temptation 
come  to  young  officers  on  the  police  force  in 
Chicago.  I  have  observed  the  hardening 
process  that  day  after  day  affects  conscience. 
I  have  watched  the  indifference  grow  upon 
them  as  their  hands  seized  upon  tainted  dol- 
lars. Gradually  the  growing  income,  the  in- 
creasing comforts  and  perquisites,  completely 
dominate  such  natures.  Whatever  trace  of  re- 
finement may  originally  have  been  seen  in 
their  faces  becomes  lost  in  the  bloating  that 
comes  from  contact  with  the  monster. 


FOREWORD  15 

They,  too,  begin  to  close  down  on  the  girl 
adrift.  They  hound  her  with  threats  of  jus- 
tice applied,  demanding  a  portion  of  her 
revenue  on  the  side. 

To-day  I  am  convinced  that  the  procurer, 
the  officer,  the  keeper,  are  tools  only  in  the 
hands  of  the  controllers  of  the  trust.  What 
they  reap  as  benefit  comes  back  to  the  trust  as 
expenditures  through  gambling  and  drink  bills 
collected  by  the  trust.  The  fortunes  are  for 
the  wealthy  sons  of  the  trust  magnates. 

I  am  impressed  with  the  striking  difference 
between  the  agencies  for  the  destruction  and 
those  for  the  safeguarding  of  the  young.  The 
agencies  for  safeguarding  are  scattered  and 
ineffective,  while  those  for  destruction  are 
united  and  nearly  infallible.  Hence  the 
amazing  power  of  the  latter.  The  agents  of 
the  vice  trust  are  always  alert.  Never  in  the 
moments  of  fatigue,  of  bitter  disappointment 
and  loneliness  that  overtake  the  girl  adrift, 


1 6  FOREWORD 

never  is  the  procurer  far  away.  He  is  al- 
ways at  hand  with  a  friendly  word,  offers  of 
companionship,  the  promise  of  work. 

In  one  moment  of  weakness,  unsustained  by 
any  of  the  safeguarding  agencies,  down  goes 
the  girl  adrift.  The  doors  close  behind  her. 
She  is  forever  lost.  She  has  joined  that  army 
of  little  lost  sisters. 

It  is  not  only  the  ostensible  friend  in  the 
hour  of  need  that  makes  captures.  Far  more 
subtle  influences  are  at  work  to  drag  in  the 
unsuspecting  country  girl.  Here  the  methods 
pursued  to  bind  and  hold  the  innocent  are  so 
dastardly  as  to  be  almost  beyond  belief. 

I  have  seen  this  process,  too.  I  have 
watched  the  hounds  posing  about  as  the  blase 
dilettante  of  a  small  town,  attracting  little 
children.  There  begins  a  process  of  under- 
mining purity  and  innocence.  After  this  had 
been  accomplished  these  rascals  pushed  the 


FOREWORD  17 

ruined  children  on  and  on  until  there  remained 
but  one  way  to  earn  their  daily  bread. 

I  will  tell  you  the  story  of  little  Florence — 
a  little  slip  of  girl,  just  fourteen.  Her  father 
was  employed  on  the  many  acres  owned  by 
the  son  of  one  of  the  foremost  families  in 
Chicago.  This  son,  a  gentleman  in  the  city, 
a  cur  in  the  country  town,  never  rested  until 
he  had  Florence  in  his  power.  Fearing  that 
his  guilt  would  be  discovered  and  tired  of  his 
plaything,  he  sent  her  out  of  the  village  with 
a  pitifully  small  sum  of  money  in  her  pocket. 

So  she  struck  out  for  the  city  alone — this 
child  of  fourteen  years,  untrained,  unprepared, 
facing  an  industrial  world  alone.  She  sought 
work,  but  she  could  not  earn  enough  to  keep 
body  and  soul  together.  One  of  the  women  in 
the  place  that  employed  Florence  offered  to 
introduce  her  to  a  friend  who  would  show 
her  "how  to  make  a  living  in  a  simple  way." 


1 8  FOREWORD 

Thus  Florence  met  the  friend — "Watchful 
Johnny"  of  the  System.  The  child's  labor 
ceased;  her  education  of  bitterness  and  cruelty 
was  just  beginning. 

After  a  time  Florence  tried  to  make  the 
wealthy  man  pay  her  in  money  for  the  terrible 
price  he  had  extracted  from  her.  In  his  fear 
that  some  of  his  exclusive  associates  would 
publicly  ridicule  him  for  his  indiscretion,  he 
began  to  persecute  the  child  through  the  aid 
of  politics  and  the  use  of  money. 

Time  passed  and  in  a  few  years,  driven 
from  one  dive  to  another,  Florence  died  miser- 
ably and  alone.  The  work  of  that  son  of 
wealth  was  complete. 

He  is  only  a  type  after  all — an  exemplar  of 
the  unthinking,  the  criminally  careless,  the 
evilly  intent.  He  and  his  band  keep  on  con- 
tributing to  the  ranks  of  the  unfortunate,  keep 
swelling  the  revenues  of  the  masters  of  social 
corruption. 


FOREWORD  19 

Society  cannot  afford  to  disregard  the  truth 
of  the  situation.  Society  dares  not  look  with 
indifference  upon  the  greatest  of  social  prob- 
lems which  confronts  us  to-day.  The  girl 
adrift  is  to  be  reckoned  with.  Hers  is  the 
handicap,  hers  is  the  struggle,  and  hers  the 
cup  of  bitterness,  as  she  drains  it  to  the  dregs. 

I  know  this  because  I  have  seen  it.  I  have 
lived  side  by  side  with  her  as  waitress,  clerk, 
or  laundress — as  toiler  of  the  factory.  Why? 
Because  I  wanted  to  know  for  myself  what  it 
is  that  drums  up  recruits  to  the  life  that  is 
death — because  there  might  be  an  opportunity 
to  bring  to  the  people  at  large  some  suggestion, 
some  insight  yet  dark,  that  would  spur  on 
greater  agitation  and  rouse  greater  interest 
in  the  abolition  of  this  evil. 


MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 


MY  BATTLES  WITH 
VICE 

CHAPTER  I 

A  MOTHER'S  REQUEST 

FROM  my  mail  one  morning  I  picked  out  a 
letter  written  by  a  woman  in  Limaville, 
Illinois,  a  little  town  in  the  southern  part  of 
the  State  with  less  than  three  thousand  in- 
habitants. The  letter  impressed  me.  It 
read: 

"Dear  Miss  Brooks: 

"I  am  writing  to  ask  you  to  help  me.  Six 
months  ago  my  little  girl  ran  away  from  home. 
I  guess  she  was  tired  of  the  farm,  tired  of 
washing  dishes,  tired  of  being  cooped  up  in 

23 


24      MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

this  small  town,  because  in  the  note  she  left 
she  said  she  wanted  to  see  the  city,  the 
restaurants,  the  lights,  the  shop  windows  and 
the  people. 

"Two  weeks  after  she  ran  away  a  postal 
came.  Mary — that  is  her  name — said  she 
had  found  work  in  Chicago.  She  didn't  send 
her  address.  Maybe  she  thought  we  would 
send  after  her.  We've  had  no  word  since 
then. 

"People  down  here  say  perhaps  Mary's 
fallen  in  with  those  'white  slavers'  we  read 
about  in  the  newspapers. 

"Miss  Brooks,  maybe  you  don't  know  what 
a  mother's  sorrow  is.  Day  and  night  I  am 
praying  to  God  to  send  my  Mary  back  to  me. 
If  I  only  knew  where  to  reach  her.  The 
thought  that  maybe  she  is  hungry,  sick  and 
suffering  is  breaking  my  heart.  I  am  so 
powerless  to  help  her.  Can't  you  do  some- 
thing? Can't  you  find  her  for  me?  I  am 


A  MOTHER'S  REQUEST         25 

sending  you  her  picture,  the  one  she  had  taken 
just  before  she  graduated  from  the  grammar 
school. 

"A  broken-hearted  mother, 
"ELIZA  HOLDEN." 

The  pages  of  the  letter  were  tear-stained. 
Poor  mother,  I  thought!  What  must  her  an- 
guish be  as  day  after  day  no  word  comes  to 
her  from  Mary?  Probably,  I  imagined,  she 
pictures  in  her  mind  each  tender  memory, 
each  little  incident  which  changed  her  sweet, 
rosy  baby  to  a  winsome  grown-up  girl.  Prob- 
ably a  thousand  times  she  has  shaped  her 
daughter's  future;  a  thousand  times  pictured 
her  won  by  the  stalwart  man  of  her  fancy, 
only  to  rouse  herself  to  the  truth,  the  hideous 
truth — that  her  Mary  was  gone.  Where? 
How?  And  even  the  gossiping  neighbors  be- 
ginning to  whisper — "white  slavers!'' 

"White  slavers!"    How  often  of  late  I  had 


26       MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

heard  the  phrase.  I  didn't  know  then  as  I 
know  now  that  a  great  system  of  white  slavery 
existed.  I  didn't  know  then  that  the  system 
had  ramifications  extending  throughout  the  en- 
tire country,  and  that  these  ramifications  are 
to  be  found  in  the  most  unlocked  for,  the  most 
unbelievable  places.  I  didn't  know  then  that 
its  supporters  are  men  and  women  high  in 
social  and  political  life. 

For  many  months  I  had  been  receiving  let- 
ters from  mothers  in  all  parts  of  the  country 
asking  me  to  lend  my  aid  in  locating  their  lost 
daughters.  Most  of  the  letters  said  that  the 
girl  had  gone  to  the  city  and  then  nothing 
more  had  been  heard  of  her. 

Perhaps  these  girls  had  fallen  a  prey  to  the 
System!  Mary  Holden,  perhaps  she,  too,— 
It  couldn't  be!  I  sprang  to  my  feet.  Some- 
thing told  me  to  go  out  and  seek  the  truth,  to 
enter  the  city's  industrial  life  and  strip  the 
veil  of  mystery  surrounding  the  pitfalls,  the 


A  MOTHER'S  REQUEST         27 

dark  and  devious  alleyways  through  which 
girls  disappear.  I  determined  to  drive  from 
its  hiding  place  the  grim  specter  of  commer- 
cialized, trust  controlled  vice,  and  to  restore 
Mary  Holden  to  her  mother. 


CHAPTER  II 

I  FIND  WORK  AS  A  WAITRESS 

WHEN  I  decided  to  get  my  information  by 
actual  contact  with  conditions  that  affect  girls 
coming  to  the  city,  and  especially  working 
girls,  I  was  puzzled  for  a  time  as  to  the  means 
of  getting  a  job. 

My  first  efforts  to  secure  a  place  as  waitress 
in  downtown  restaurants  were  not  very  success- 
ful. I  had  scraped  up  an  acquaintance  with 
several  girls  employed  in  restaurants,  and  to 
them  I  communicated  my  desire  to  work. 
One  of  them  was  rather  a  pretty  child  named 
Linny  Smith.  She  wore  a  yard  or  more  of 
puffs  and  seemed  to  me  on  first  impression  to 
be  about  half  hair,  but  she  was  very  good 
hearted  and  anxious  to  help  me. 


I  WORK  AS  A  WAITRESS        29 

"The  trouble  with  you,  Kid,"  she  confided, 
"  is  that  you  ain't  got  no  style  to  you.  Look 
at  the  way  you've  got  your  hair  on." 

"What's  the  matter  with  it?"  I  inquired  with 
deep  humility. 

"Matter  with  it?"  she  retorted  with  disgust. 
"Get  some  puffs  and  doll  yourself  up." 

On  reflection  I  decided  that  her  advice  about 
the  puffs  was  sound  from  several  points  of 
view. 

In  the  first  place,  I  did  not  want  to  be  recog- 
nized, which  would  make  my  work  of  no  avail, 
and  in  the  second  place  my  too  placid  aspect 
did  really  seem  to  have  a  deterrent  effect  on 
the  employer  of  help.  So  I  bought  some  puffs 
and  trained  them  down  over  my  forehead  with 
an  effect  so  extraordinary  that  I  at  once  con- 
cluded the  disguise  to  be  absolutely  safe. 

The  next  day  I  tried  several  more  places  and 
failed  again,  but  the  more  I  tried  and  failed 
the  more  determined  I  was  to  be  a  waitress. 


30      MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

I  wanted  to  experience  for  myself  from  day 
to  day  all  the  advantages  and  disadvantages 
connected  with  the  occupation.  I  had  no  ex- 
perience, you  see,  and  already  I  was  beginning 
to  realize  the  struggle  a  girl  must  go  through 
when  she  has  had  no  preparation  for  entry  into 
the  fields  of  industry.  I  wanted  to  find  out 
what  the  opportunities  of  such  a  girl  were — 
what  praise  or  blame  or  pleasure  or  humilia- 
tion might  be  hers. 

So  I  persisted,  and  at  last  I  succeeded. 
Linny  Smith  had  offered  me  daily  hints  as  to 
how  I  might,  from  her  experienced  point  of 
view,  improve  my  appearance  and  thus  stand 
a  better  chance  of  getting  work. 

My  first  chance  came  at  one  of  the  big  stores. 
I  entered  the  employment  bureau  of  this  place 
and  found  a  long  line  of  girls  standing  before 
the  superintendent's  desk.  The  line  had  been 
waiting,  I  found,  over  two  hours.  I  stepped 
into  place  at  the  end  of  the  line. 


I  WORK  AS  A  WAITRESS        31 

"Gee,"  said  a  rather  pretty  looking  girl  who 
had  the  place  ahead  of  me,  "we  ain't  got  as 
much  show  as  a  pair  of  pink  eyed  rabbits  in  a 
den  of  snakes." 

The  child  had  a  pinched,  tired  look,  but 
there  was  a  half-whimsical  expression  on  her 
face — the  ghost  of  a  smile. 

"After  a  clerking  job?"  asked  the  girl  ahead. 

"No,  I  want  to  be  a  waitress,"  I  said. 
"Haven't  had  any  experience  at  clerking." 

"Not  for  mine,"  said  the  child.  "I've  got 
to  get  a  clerk's  job,  and  it's  got  to  pay  seven  a 
week,  because  I've  got  my  mother  and  sister 
to  keep." 

Just  then  a  porter  came  out  of  an  inner  office 
and  began  looking  over  the  girls  in  the  row. 
He  picked  out  the  girl  ahead  and  me  and 
beckoned  to  us. 

"You  two  can  step  in,"  he  said. 

The  little  girl  ahead  shrank  back.  I  did 
not  comprehend  it  then,  but  did  later. 


32      MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

"You  go  on  in,"  she  said  to  me.  "I've  lost 
my  nerve." 

I  stepped  into  the  office  and  a  gruff  voice 
ordered  me  to  give  my  name,  address,  what 
sort  of  a  job  I  wanted,  and  my  letters  of  refer- 
ence. 

I  explained  that  I  had  no  letter  of  reference, 
but  that  I  could  give  him  the  name  of  a  re- 
sponsible person  to  call  on  the  telephone. 

"Nothing  doing,"  said  the  man.  "Suppose 
IVe  got  nothing  to  do  but  call  people  on  the 
telephone?" 

I  mumbled  some  sort  of  apology  with  flam- 
ing cheeks.  The  man  told  me  to  get  my  letter 
of  recommendation  and  then  call  again. 

I  hurried  out  of  the  office.  The  young  girl 
who  had  "lost  her  nerve"  met  me  outside.  She 
seemed  to  have  been  crying.  She  grasped  my 
arm  and  led  me  to  one  side. 

"What  did  he  say,  Kid?  Any  chance?"  she 
questioned. 


I  WORK  AS  A  WAITRESS        33 

I  told  her  about  the  letter  of  recommenda- 
tion and  her  face  fell. 

"I  knew  it,"  she  said,  sadly.  "You  know 
how  it  is — I  can't  get  a  letter  of  recommenda- 
tion that  would  hold  a  spoonful  of  water.  No 
show  for  me  in  there.  Well,  good-by." 

I  asked  the  girl  for  her  name  and  address, 
and  she  gave  them  to  me.  Afterward  I 
visited  her  several  times,  but  she  has  given 
up  her  ambition  to  be  a  clerk.  Poor  child! 

I  was  passing  the  line  of  girls  near  the  man- 
ager's office  making  my  way  out  of  the  place, 
when  one  of  the  weariest  of  the  weary  gather- 
ing called  out  to  me: 

"Girlie!  Looking  for  a  job?  If  you  are, 
hurry  upstairs  and  see  Miss  Nixon.  She 
wants  a  girl  for  the  quick-lunch  counter. 
Hustle  along  and  you  can  nick  it." 

A  few  minutes  later  I  was  upstairs  inquir- 
ing for  the  forewoman  of  the  restaurant.  The 
person  who  came  forward  was  fat  and  im- 


34      MY  BATTLES  WITH  YICE 

posing.  Again  I  was  plied  with  questions 
and  given  an  application  blank  to  fill  out. 
The  scrutiny  of  that  blank  was  not  very  close. 
They  needed  a  girl  at  once.  The  ordeal  was 
over.  I  was  accepted.  My  hours  were  from 
1 1  A.  M.  to  3  P.  M.  and  from  4.30  to  8  P.  M. 
The  pay  was  $4.50  a  week  for  the  morn- 
ing work  and  50  cents  extra  for  work  at 
night. 

Now  there  is  a  vast  difference  between  see- 
ing a  thing  done  and  actually  doing  it  one's 
self.  You  may  think  you  can  sense  a  situation 
fully  from  observation,  but  that  is  a  fallacy. 
Do  the  thing  yourself,  and  in  a  few  minutes 
you  get  a  viewpoint  that  you  had  not  supposed 
could  exist. 

I  had  often  wondered  how  it  felt  to  shift 
heavy  trays  loaded  with  dishes  backward  and 
forward  from  a  kitchen  to  a  table  perhaps 
five  or  six  rods  away.  I  had  watched  wait- 
resses, flushed  and  perspiring,  hurrying  to 


I  WORK  AS  A  WAITRESS        35 

serve  impatient  customers.     Now  I  was  in  the 
thick  of  it  myself. 

"Annie  Tate — waitress."  That  was  my 
name  on  my  first  step  toward  the  mysteries  of 
the  underworld  in  the  search  for  Mary 
Holden. 

It  was  already  1 1  o'clock,  so  the  forewoman 
put  me  at  work  immediately  on  "instructions." 
First  I  was  told  to  serve  the  hot  drinks,  then 
collect  the  checks,  then  deposit  the  checks  in 
the  cash  box  and  bring  back  the  sandwiches. 

This  method  was  employed  so  that  cus- 
tomers could  not  cheat  the  store.  One  check 
paid  for  the  drink  and  the  sandwich. 

Then  I  was  taken  out  to  the  kitchen.  There 
I  saw  several  red-armed  young  girls  washing 
dishes  in  boiling  suds  that  I  afterward  found 
contained  some  sort  of  chemical  for  cutting 
grease.  The  chemical  was  so  strong  that  the 
girls  soon  became  incapacitated  from  the  in- 
flammation it  caused. 


36       MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

The  poor  girls  seemed  to  have  a  hopeless 
sort  of  task.  One  of  them  was  very  pretty— 
the  only  one  who  spoke  to  me.  I  asked  her 
if  she  couldn't  get  a  better  job  than  that,  and 
she  said  that  if  she  worked  outside  people 
would  see  her.  She  preferred  to  be  in  the 
kitchen.  As  I  left  her  to  go  back  to  the 
counter  she  surprised  me  by  paraphrasing 
Kipling's  Sergeant  Mulvaney  with  the  whim- 
sical remark:  "I  was  a  school  teacher  wanst, 
but  no  matther." 

I  decided  to  see  more  of  that  girl  later,  and 
I  did.  She  will  be  heard  from  again  in  the 
course  of  my  story.  I  noticed  that  this  girl 
washed  her  dishes  very  carefully,  but  the 
others  seemed  to  have  no  desire  to  do  more 
than  keep  making  motions. 

A  minute  later  I  was  working  at  the  counter. 
The  noon-hour  rush  was  just  beginning. 
Four  girls  beside  myself  and  a  head  waitress 
were  running  back  and  forth  trying  to  serve 


I  WORK  AS  A  WAITRESS        37 

the  customers,  who  all  wanted  to  be  served  at 
once.  Most  of  the  patronage  seemed  to  con- 
sist of  shopgirls  and  clerks  of  various  grades. 

It  was  a  scrambled  phantasmagoria  of 
"Ham  on  rye,"  "Cheese  on  white,"  "Ham  on 
white,"  "Hurry  up  the  checks,"  "Get  out  of 
my  road." 

The  head  waitress  was  perpetually  prod- 
ding the  girls  on  to  greater  effort.  At  first 
they  seemed  to  respond  with  alacrity,  but  as 
time  passed  they  grew  rude  and  ugly,  resent- 
ing the  constant  nagging  with  remarks  of  their 
own  that  one  would  never  have  suspected  they 
knew  how  to  make.  As  the  hours  went  by  I 
realized  what  a  desperately  hard  life  this  wait- 
ress work  is.  I  found  the  turmoil  and  hustling 
almost  unbearable,  but  it  was  my  job,  so  I  stuck 
to  it  like  a  leech. 

The  balls  of  my  feet  ached  horribly.  The 
bones  of  my  face  and  head  began  to  pain  me. 
I  remarked  this  to  a  pale,  thin  woman  who  was 


38       MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

sitting  at  the  end  of  the  counter.  I  brought 
her  an  order  of  milk  and  apple  pie.  She 
appeared  to  be  in  a  state  of  intense  nervous 
excitement,  and  I  asked  her  if  she  felt  tired. 

"Tired!"  she  blurted  out.  "Say,  I'm  be- 
ginning to  believe  I  can't  die." 

The  woman  told  me  she  was  sewing  on  chil- 
dren's rompers  for  some  tailoring  firm.  She 
said  she  had  to  work  in  a  little  room  with  five 
women,  and  there  was  only  enough  air  for 
two. 

"I've  got  a  little  boy,  and  he's  a  cripple," 
she  confided.  "I  suppose  that  is  why  the  Lord 
won't  let  me  die." 

I  asked  her  why  she  didn't  eat  something 
more  digestible  than  pie,  and  she  replied  that 
she  had  become  used  to  eating  quickly,  and 
pie  was  the  quickest  lunch  she  could  get. 

Just  then  the  bell  rang  for  us  to  go  to  our 
luncheon,  and  the  tired,  thin  woman  dragged 
herself  away.  Lunch  was  served  free  to  em- 


I  WORK  AS  A  WAITRESS        39 

ployees  of  the  counter.  I  ate  very  little,  but 
seized  the  opportunity  to  go  out  for  a  breath 
of  fresh  air.  There  were  two  girls  outside 
from  another  department.  One  of  them  spoke 
to  me,  and  after  we  had  conversed  a  few  min- 
utes I  asked  her  where  she  lived. 

"Me  and  Mame's  living  in  a  vaudeville 
house  out  South,  and  we're  studyin'  for  the 
stage,"  she  said.  "There's  a  fellow  there  fix- 
ing up  a  turn  for  us.  Pretty  soon  we'll  be 
going  on  the  road." 

I  returned  to  the  counter  for  the  afternoon 
shift  feeling  somewhat  refreshed.  I  deter- 
mined to  observe  more  closely  the  details  of 
the  place.  The  four  kinds  of  sandwiches  were 
divided  into  two  lots  and  placed  at  each  end 
of  the  counter.  Ham  on  white  and  rye  bread 
were  at  one  end  and  the  cheese  sandwiches  at 
the  other. 

The  tanks  holding  the  liquids  were  placed 
in  the  center  and  a  shelf  under  the  counter  for 


40      MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

cups  placed  them  in  a  difficult  position.  The 
counter  was  arranged  without  a  thought  for 
the  girls  who  worked  at  it.  Unnecessary  steps 
the  length  of  the  counter  were  required.  The 
constant  reaching  for  those  badly  placed  cups 
caused  my  knees  to  ache  fearfully.  I  thought 
of  suggesting  a  change  in  the  location  of  the 
materials  to  be  served,  but  I  spoke  to  one  of 
the  girls  about  it  and  she  said:  "For  Gawd's 
sake,  tell  that  to  Barney;  I'd  like  to  notice 
whether  she'd  give  you  time  to  get  your 
hat." 

Then  for  a  few  minutes  the  girl  became  con- 
fidential, and  I  felt  sorry  for  her,  poor  thing. 
She  told  me  she  kept  house  for  her  father, 
brother  and  nephew,  being  motherless.  They 
were  trying  to  get  a  home  together,  she  said. 

"The  work  is  hard  here,"  I  remarked. 

"Hard  here?"  she  snorted.  "Why,  I  got  up 
at  six  this  morning  and  did  the  whole  family 
wash,  and  my  slob  of  a  brother  refused  to 


I  WORK  AS  A  WAITRESS        41 

straighten  the  kitchen  so  that  I  could  get  a 
few  minutes'  rest  before  I  came  down  here." 

"You  ought  to  make  them  help  you,"  I  ven- 
tured. 

"Say,"  she  answered,  "you  don't  know.  I'm 
English  and  Englishmen  make  truck  horses  of 
their  women." 

The  clerks  and  working  girls  I  had  seen 
were  coming  back  now  for  their  supper. 
Their  orders  were  not  very  much.  Five  cents 
for  lunch  and  ten  cents  for  supper — sandwich, 
coffee,  and  pie,  the  evening  extravagance. 
They  lived  on  that  fare  for  weeks  and  months 
at  a  time  until  their  stomachs  revolted  and  they 
had  doctors'  bills  to  pay.  This  crisis  in  their 
lives  was  variously  met.  I  am  coming  to  that 
later.  Poor  little  girls  with  their  pasty  faces 
and  pale  lips! 

I  went  into  the  kitchen  with  a  plate  to  hold 
out  for  my  supper.  The  cook  reached  into  a 
tin  and  pulled  out  a  piece  of  meat  with  his 


42      MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

fingers,  slapping  it  on  the  plate.  He  reached 
again  and  slapped  a  handful  of  mashed  pota- 
toes beside  the  meat  I  fled.  It  was  time  to 
go  to  the  cashier  for  my  fifty  cents  extra.  The 
cashier  was  a  girl  of  about  twenty.  She  was 
cross  and  irritable.  She  spoke  insultingly  to 
girls  but  her  insults  did  not  stop  there.  I  saw 
a  woman  customer  step  up  to  the  cage  and 
heard  her  ask  if  the  dining-room  was  closed. 

"Yes,"  said  the  cashier. 

The  woman  made  a  petulant  remark. 

"Why  the don't  you  do  your  cooking 

at  home?"  demanded  the  cashier,  as  the  cus- 
tomer shrank  away. 

Well,  it  is  all  in  the  point  of  view.  When 
I  reached  home  and  had  immersed  myself  in 
a  porcelain  tub  I  began  to  recover. 

My  self-respect  returned  in  leaps  and 
bounds.  I  realized  what  an  important  part 
environment  plays  in  the  matter  of  self-respect. 
I  wondered  how  long  I  could  keep  mine  work- 


I  WORK  AS  A  WAITRESS        43 

ing  under  such  conditions  as  those  of  my  first 
working  day.  Suppose  I  had  been  compelled 
to  return  to  a  chilly,  ill-furnished  room  instead 
of  to  a  cheery,  harmonious  household  and  a 
sympathetic  mother? 

It  isn't  invariably  the  costume  of  the  woman 
of  fashion  or  the  blazing  resplendent  show 
window  that  tempts  the  girl  adrift.  It  is  more 
often  just  the  human  need  for  love  and  shelter 
—the  lack  of  a  friendly  hand-clasp  that  shall 
lighten  to-morrow's  labor — the  sympathy  and 
understanding  that  breed  hope. 


CHAPTER  III 

I  BECOME  A  CLERK 

I  SUPPOSE  I  was  not  a  very  competent  waitress. 
At  all  events  my  employers  did  not  seem  par- 
ticularly impressed  with  the  value  of  my 
services.  In  a  few  days  I  was  looking  for 
another  job.  My  position  was  the  same  on 
the  surface  as  that  in  which  thousands  of  in- 
competent girls  find  themselves  every  day — 
but  most  of  them  haven't  good  homes  to  go  to 
when  they  are  out  of  work. 

It  was  purely  by  luck  that  I  obtained  my 
second  place.  I  was  engaged  to  clerk  in  a 
large  department  store  during  the  Christmas 
rush  season.  My  place  was  in  the  basement. 
Several  girls  had  fallen  out  of  the  ranks  the 
night  before  I  was  engaged.  Another  girl 
told  me  they  "had  to  get  Christmas  money." 

44 


I  BECOME  A  CLERK  45 

I  was  turned  over  to  a  floor  walker,  who 
demonstrated  the  cash  register,  told  me  quali- 
ties and  prices  of  goods  and  other  things. 
Then  I  was  ordered  to  go  to  the  rest  room  and 
hang  up  my  hat. 

The  rest  room  struck  me  as  rather  a  joke. 
It  was  10  by  20  feet  and  crowded  with  girls. 
A  table  covered  with  oilcloth  ran  along  one 
side  of  it.  The  girls  were  eating  sandwiches 
and  pie.  On  a  dilapidated  couch  in  a  corner 
of  the  room  lay  a  girl  who  was  crying  from 
headache.  Nobody  paid  any  attention  to  her. 
A  very  slovenly  matron  was  in  attendance. 
All  the  coat  hangers  were  full,  so  I  climbed 
on  a  locker  and  found  a  niche  for  my  things. 
From  this  point  I  also  discovered  that  there 
were  no  outside  windows — just  holes  cut  for 
ventilation.  The  air  that  came  through  these 
holes  was  from  the  basement.  It  was  drawn 
down  by  an  electric  fan,  and,  moreover,  it  was 
very  foul. 


46      MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

The  floor  walker  again  took  charge  of  me 
and  showed  me  my  counter.  It  was  a  doll 
counter,  upon  which  all  sorts  of  dolls,  books, 
and  games  were  placed.  After  once  entering 
the  counter  the  clerk  is  not  permitted  to  leave 
without  a  pass  from  the  floor  walker. 

The  girl  in  charge  of  the  counter  was  called 
Lil.  I  have  never  encountered  so  peculiar  a 
personality.  Her  face  was  lacquered  with 
whitewash  and  her  hair,  under  a  net,  was 
oiled,  twisted  and  flat.  Her  bangs  were 
shaped  into  "spit"  curls  and  plastered  flat  to 
her  forehead.  Her  face  was  without  a  vestige 
of  expression.  She  was  rather  nice  in  her 
manner  to  me,  possibly  because  I  said  little 
to  her. 

I  watched  this  girl  closely  in  order  to  get 
a  line  on  what  I  must  do.  She  spoke  quite 
softly  to  me,  but  she  continually  cursed  the 
other  girls,  calling  them  horrible  names  under 


I  BECOME  A  CLERK  47 

her  breath.  I  don't  know  why  she  did  this ; 
there  did  not  seem  to  be  any  reason  for  it. 
She  spoke  in  tones  just  low  enough  to  escape 
the  ear  of  the  floor  walker. 

A  small  girl  named  Maud,  about  sixteen 
years  old,  waited  at  my  end  of  the  counter 
next  to  me.  She  was  soiled  and  tousled — so 
slouchy  that  I  wondered  how  she  managed  to 
get  work.  I  asked  her  if  this  was  her  first 
job  and  her  reply  was  illuminating. 

"Naw,"  she  grinned.  "IVe  had  thirty  jobs 
so  far  in  my  sweet  young  life — factories  and 
mail  order  houses  are  my  meat." 

I  must  have  looked  at  her  commiseratingly, 
because  her  old-young  face  took  on  an  expres- 
sion that  seemed  more  human  as  she  leaned 
toward  me  and  said: 

"I'm  engaged,  Kid— but  don't  spill  it." 

I  tried  to  hustle  about  in  that  place  and  see 
what  enterprise  could  do  toward  gaining  ap- 


48       MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

proval  from  the  "great  chief," — our  floor 
walker.  My  efforts  made  no  impression  on 
him  at  all. 

"What's  the  good  working  for  him?"  said 
little  Maud.  "Why,  that  guy's  got  to  come 
down  all  hours  of  the  day  and  night  to  clean 
up  and  mark  goods.  He's  all  to  the  winky 
blink.  It  don't  make  no  difference  to  him 
whether  you  live  or  die,  because  he  is  so  near 
'dead  himself." 

The  crowds  increased  toward  the  noon  hour. 
The  basement  became  almost  intolerable — 
hot,  close  and  seething  with  chatter.  I  was 
afraid  I  might  not  be  able  to  stand  it  and  was 
very  much  relieved  when  the  bell  rang  for 
luncheon. 

I  hurried  into  the  dressing  room  and  was 
clambering  on  the  locker  after  my  things  when 
I  felt  some  one  take  hold  of  my  hand  and 
turned  around  to  see  a  rather  smart-looking 
fellow  about  twenty  standing  beside  me. 


I  BECOME  A  CLERK  49 

"Kid,"  he  began,  "come  on.  I'll  blow  you 
to  the  beans." 

"Thanks,"  I  answered,  "beans  don't  agree 
with  me." 

"Shoot  the  beans,"  he  persisted.  "Lady 
Vere  can  order  patty  de  fossy  gras  and  joy 
bubbles  if  she  wants  'em." 

Again  I  refused  the  invitation.  He  went 
away  very  angry. 

"Believe  me,  Kid,"  he  called  back,  over  his 
shoulder,  "you'll  get  tired  of  paying  for 
lunches  on  your  rake-off." 

I  told  one  of  the  girls  about  this  episode  and 
she  stared  at  me  unbelievingly. 

"Why,  you  fool,"  she  whispered,  "he's  re- 
lated to  one  of  the  bosses  upstairs  and  he's  got 
money  to  burn  a  city  with.  It  was  the  chance 
of  your  life." 

Then  she  motioned  for  me  to  step  into  a 
corner,  and  in  a  whisper  she  continued: 
"Why,  that  fellow  treated  a  girl  so  nice  down 


50      MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

here,  that  she  just  got  up  and  quit.  Some  of 
the  girls  say  that  he  is  supporting  her.  He 
sure  did  buy  her  fine  clothes." 

"And  what  was  the  girl's  name?"  I  inquired. 

"Mary,"  she  replied. 

"Mary — Mary  what?"  I  asked  eagerly. 

"Mary  Holden." 

"Mary  Holden,"  I  repeated. 

"Yes." 

I  remained  quite  stunned  for  a  few  mo- 
ments. Indeed,  I  was  on  the  track  of  the 
missing  girl.  She  had  worked  here  in  this 
store.  And  the  flippant  youth?,  He  had 
bought  her  clothes,  and  dinners!  I  hurried 
out  of  the  building.  I  had  so  much  to  think 
over,  and  I  was  so  fatigued.  I  needed  food 
and  air,  and  a  place  to  think. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  FIRST  CLEW 

I  RETURNED  to  the  store,  my  mind  fully  made 
up  to  find  Mary  and  to  make  the  over-dressed 
youth  tell  me  her  address.  As  I  entered  the 
basement  the  place  rang  with  rough  conversa- 
tion relating  to  dance  hall  orgies  in  which 
some  of  the  girls  had  participated. 

Maud,  my  small  companion  of  the  counter, 
sat  silent  in  a  corner,  drinking  in  the  talk. 
Maud  was  getting  her  ideas  of  deportment, 
ideals  of  conduct,  notions  of  life.  She  was 
getting  them  in  a  dangerous  school.  By  the 
time  they  reached  her  they  were  twisted  out 
of  respectable  recognition.  Here  was  a  girl 
adrift  receiving  impressions. 

My  time  was  up.     I  returned  to  work.     The 

51 


52       MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

girls  seemed  quite  friendly.  Maud  came  back 
to  the  counter  and  in  a  childish  way  she  put 
her  arm  around  my  waist. 

"You  for  me,  Doll,"  she  smiled. 

Nobody  ever  tried  to  find  out  my  real  name. 
I  was  either  "Doll,"  "Kid,"  "Flossie,"  or 
"Flip."  It  simplified  matters  a  great  deal, 
because  I  several  times  forgot  names  I  had 
given  and  was  afraid  of  being  confronted  with 
my  own  perfidy. 

There  was  a  great  deal  of  dissension  be- 
tween Maud  and  Lil.  The  two  hurled  oaths 
at  each  other  that  could  not  be  improved  on 
by  any  longshoreman  my  imagination  can  con- 
jure. 

Maud  told  me  that  Lil  was  a  "rounder,  and 
no good." 

"Say,"  the  child  confided,  "that  wedding 
ring  the  tramp  is  wearing  is  phony.  She  got 
it  at  a  5  cent  store.  She  ain't  never  married 
long."  ~ 


THE  FIRST  CLEW,  53 

Customers  were  crowding  round  the  coun- 
ters, pushing,  jostling,  shouting  their  wants. 
It  was  pandemonium.  The  constant  run- 
ning back  and  forth  and  high  reaching  for 
shelf  goods  made  me  deathly  tired.  I  brought 
into  play  muscles  I  seemed  never  to  have  used 
before. 

Then  there  was  the  string.  Tyros  can't 
break  string  properly.  It  is  a  knack  one  has 
to  learn.  I  had  a  deep  raw  groove  in  the 
under  side  of  my  little  finger  from  breaking 
string.  I  suppose  somebody  could  have 
taught  me  to  do  the  trick  correctly  in  five 
minutes,  but  nobody  did. 

"Move  along  there,  Flip." 

I  looked  around  and  saw  a  new  girl  behind 
the  counter.  She  said  she'd  been  put  on  the 
job  with  me.  Here  was  the  most  persistent 
questioner  I  had  yet  encountered.  She  was 
very  slim-waisted,  graceful  in  a  certain  rep- 
tilian way,  and  her  hair  was  piled  high  with 


54      MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

puffs.  I  think  she  had  been  a  brunette,  but 
if  so  she  had  quarreled  with  Providence. 

"My  name's  Sadie,"  volunteered  my  new 
friend.  "Say,  where  do  you  live,  Kid?  You 
don't  look  like  you  traveled  the  route." 

I  mumbled  something  about  living  at  Chi- 
cago Avenue  and  North  Clark  Street,  and  she 
rapped  out  a  remark  that  it  was  a  "tough 


corner." 


"What  do  you  get  a  week?"  pursued  Sadie, 
breezing  along  in  her  offhand  way. 

"Only  $6  now,"  I  answered. 

"How  are  you  going  to  live  on  that?"  she 
demanded. 

"Well,"  I  sighed  hypocritically,  "it  will 
mean  going  without  many  things." 

"Oh,  yes,  it  will,"  snapped  Sadie.  "Go 
without  nothing  you  can.  See  these." 

"These"  flashed  for  an  instant  as  Sadie  exe- 
cuted a  rather  daring  kick.  They  were  "near- 
silk." 


THE  FIRST  CLEW  55 

"I  got  them  from  a  guy  last  night,"  the  girl 
went  on.  "Don't  let  nothing  get  away  from 
you  that  you  can  grab.  Say,  dearie,  it's  easy. 
Get  a  guy  and  ring  him  up  for  a  five.  Can 
you  dance?" 

"Yes,"  I  confessed,  "but  a  girl  doesn't  get 
much  chance  to  go  anywhere  when  she  is  a 
stranger." 

uAw,  sure  you  can,"  grinned  Sadie,  amazed 
at  my  simplicity.  "Say,  Kid,  I'll  take  you  to 
Dreamland.  It  won't  cost  us  a  cent  if  we 
make  a  killing.  There's  always  a  bunch  of 
guys  around  there  and  it's  dead  easy  to  date 
up." 

"What  is  dating  up?"  I  pleaded. 

"Greener  than  the  green  hills,"  muttered 
Sadie,  sotto  voce.  Then  she  added,  aloud: 
"By  Gee.  I'm  goin'  to  give  you  the  time  of 
your  life,  Kid.  You  gotta  be  wised  up.  Get 
on  the  job,"  she  hissed  in  conclusion.  "Here 
comes  the  devil." 


56      MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

I  looked  around.  Mooney,  the  floor 
walker,  was  approaching.  Sadie  said  he  was 
picking  out  the  girls  to  be  discharged  and  the 
ones  to  be  retained  at  the  close  of  that  day's 
work. 

"Doesn't  the  store  give  any  notice?"  I  asked. 
"I  cannot  afford  to  be  without  work." 

"Raus  mittum,"  laughed  Sadie.  "If  they 
tie  a  tin  to  us  we'll  both  go  over  to  the  mail 
order.  Say!  See  that  yellow-haired  fellow 
over  there?  He's  asked  me  out  to  lunch,  but 
he  frames  like  a  piker.  Anyway,  it's  thirty- 
five  cents  in  my  kick  and  I'll  let  him  spend  it. 
Here's  some  gum.  Don't  let  Mooney  see  you 
looking  cow-eyed — gum  ain't  allowed.  So 
long,  Kid;  see  you  after  supper." 

I  watched  Sadie's  lithe  form  and  her  too 
blonde  head  with  its  flashing  crystal  set  combs 
as  she  undulated  through  the  throng  and  dis- 
appeared. I  turned  back  to  my  work.  There 
stood  Mooney.  Lil  was  watching  him  closely. 


THE  FIRST  CLEW  57 

The  other  girls  eyed  him  with  painful  inten- 
sity. He  just  stood  and  looked  at  us  a  moment 
and  then  passed  on.  That  settled  it,  Lil  said. 
Not  one  of  us  had  been  chosen  to  stay  on. 
There  would  be  a  new  crew  after  Christmas. 

"The  stiff!"  Lil  snorted— " and  me  down 
here  working  over  hours  packing  goods. 
Well,  it's  back  to  the  mail  order  for  mine.  If 
I'd  known  I  wasn't  going  to  stick  I'd  have 
gone  to  the  dance  with  the  bunch  to-night. 
Say!  You  ought  to  see  my  regular  do  the 
trot!" 

A  comical  expression  grew  on  her  white- 
washed face  and  she  wiggled  her  shoulders, 
first  one,  then  the  other,  contorting  her  body 
grotesquely  as  she  sang  under  her  breath: 
"It's  a  bear — it's  a  bear — it's  a  bear."  An  in- 
stant later  she  was  holding  her  hand  over  her 
heart  and  gasping:  "My  God,  I'm  all  in, 
Kid.  I  couldn't  trot  ner  nothin'  else  to- 
night." 


58       MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

I  looked  up  and  noticed  that  the  flippant 
youth,  son  of  one  of  the  bosses  upstairs,  was 
standing  at  my  counter  eyeing  me  closely.  I 
had  something  to  say  to  him. 

He  spoke  first. 

"Hello,  Kid." 

"Hello,"  I  retorted. 

"Sorry  you  couldn't  take  me  up  this  noon," 
he  continued.  "We  might  have  had  a  fine 
feed."  He  smiled  and  showed  his  imperfect 
teeth. 

"I  don't  know  you  well  enough  for  that,"  I 
said. 

"Oh,  introductions  are  not  necessary  here. 
Why,  one  Kid  who  worked  here  treated  me 
right,  and,  say,  I  couldn't  do  enough  for  her." 

"That  girl  was  Mary  Holden."  Even  now 
I  don't  know  what  made  me  blurt  out  the 
name. 

"How  did  you  know?"  he  demanded, 
slightly  taken  back. 


THE  FIRST  CLEW  59 

"Oh,  sfie  told  me,"  I  answered.  "I  wish  I 
knew  where  I  could  find  her.  We  are  good 
friends,  you  know." 

"Is  that  so.  I'll  tell  you  where  she  is."  He 
looked  around  to  see  if  anybody  was  watching. 
Then  he  took  a  note-book  from  his  pocket  and 
obligingly  read  off  an  address  for  me  which  I 
jotted  down. 

"You'll  find  her  there,"  he  laughed.  "Give 
her  my  best."  And  he  walked  off,  favoring 
me  with  a  wink  of  his  bloodshot  eye. 

I  looked  at  the  address  and  could  hardly 
believe  my  eyes.  The  number  and  street  was 
in  one  of  the  most  questionable  parts  of  the 
city.  Poor  Mary  Holden — poor  little  girls 
adrift! 

It  was  the  night  before  Christmas.  And 
misery  was  all  about  me.  How  my  heart 
ached  for  those  countless,  motherless,  home- 
less girls  about  me.  Some  of  them  never  sur- 
vived the  strain  of  that  Christmas  season. 


60      MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

They  wanted  to  give.  They  did  give — too 
much. 

Shoppers  were  heartless.  In  haste  to  secure 
service  before  the  stores  closed  they  raved  and 
threatened.  From  one  side  of  the  counter  to 
the  other  I  worked.  It  was  like  a  nightmare. 
The  cut  under  my  little  finger  was  bleeding 
badly.  I  cried  whenever  I  tried  to  break 
string.  My  feet  throbbed.  Some  of  the  girls 
were  in  their  stocking  feet — it  was  impossible 
to  stand  the  pressure  of  shoes. 

I  looked  up.  There  stood  the  girl  I  had 
seen  that  first  day  while  looking  for  work. 
She  had  on  a  new  hat  and  coat. 

"Merry  Christmas,"  she  cried.  "I  came 
over  just  to  wish  it  to  you." 

"And  Merry  Christmas  to  you,  dear,"  I  an- 
swered. The  child  looked  at  me  pitifully  and 
her  eyes  fell.  She  was  crying.  An  instant 
later  she  pointed  at  the  hat  and  coat  she  wore 


THE  FIRST  CLEW  61 

and  stepped  back  to  show  me  new  shoes  and 
stockings. 

"I've  got  money  now,"  she  sobbed,  "but  no 
Merry  Christmas,  girlie — they  got  my  number 
all  right." 

Before  I  could  say  another  word  she  was 
gone.  That  night  I  wept  myself  to  sleep. 
The  bells  were  ringing  out  "Peace  on  Earth, 
Good  Will  to  Men."  Poor  little  girl  adrift! 


CHAPTER  V 

NELLIE  DALY'S  MEAL  TICKET 

THE  boarding-house  keepers  of  large  cities 
are  often  the  world's  most  practical  humani- 
tarians. The  'stout  woman,  sometimes  of  a 
forbidding  aspect,  whose  portly  presence 
strikes  terror  into  the  heart  of  the  little  girl 
seeking  work  and  a  place  to  live  in  an  un- 
known town,  is  often  the  girl's  best  friend  and 
her  readiest  resource  in  the  time  of  stress. 

It  is  true  that  there  are  always  societies  and 
organizations  to  which  the  girl  out  of  work 
may  appeal  for  assistance  if  she  is  lucky 
enough  to  know  where  they  are,  or  even  to  be 
aware  of  their  existence  at  all,  but  what  the 
girl  needs  when  she  is  depressed  with  hunger 

and  her  power  of  resistance  to  the  "man  with 

62 


NELLIE'S  MEAL  TICKET        63 

the  dinner"  is  weakened  by  deprivation,  is 
some  big-hearted  soul  on  the  spot  with  a  bowl 
of  hot  soup  and  a  kind  word. 

I  credit  the  rooming-house  and  boarding- 
house  keepers  with  having  saved  many  souls. 

Here  is  a  case  that  will  illustrate  my  point. 
I  am  thinking  of  little  Nellie  Daly,  a  sixteen- 
year-old  child  possessed  of  that  extraordinary 
beauty  which  comes  of  mixing  the  Irish  and 
Scandinavian  races.  Nellie's  mother  was  a 
wonderful  blonde  and  her  father  a  black- 
haired  West-of-Ireland  man. 

Nellie  had  the  long,  dark  lashes  and  blue- 
gray  eyes  of  her  father  and  great  masses  of 
golden-blond  hair  like  her  mother.  She  was 
slight  of  stature,  but  her  figure  was  perfect. 

This  child  appealed  to  me  when  I  met  her 
for  the  first  time.  She  was  employed  in  an  en- 
velope addressing  department  of  a  mail  order 
concern  and  her  pay  was  $5  a  week.  Her 
room  was  in  a  house  on  Indiana  Street,  right 


64      MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

in  the  middle  of  what  used  to  be  a  particularly 
disreputable  district  before  they  began  clean- 
ing out  the  dives  of  that  locality.  But  Nellie's 
boarding-house  keeper,  Mrs.  McCarthy,  was 
a  motherly  soul. 

Nellie  paid  $2  for  her  room.  That  left  her 
$3  to  live  on,  dress  on  and  pay  for  all  other 
necessaries  and  amusements.  Nellie's  people 
were  in  the  theatrical  line.  At  the  time  I  met 
her  the  father  had  been  ill  and  both  parents 
were  having  a  hard  time  of  it  in  some  town  on 
the  southern  circuit,  where  they  had  become 
stranded. 

One  day,  in  a  burst  of  confidence,  Nellie 
told  me  that  her  meal  ticket  cost  $3.  Putting 
two  and  two  together  I  realized  that  my  little 
friend  was  spending  her  whole  income  just 
to  eat  and  sleep.  I  wondered  how  she  paid 
for  her  washing.  That  is  why  I  called  on 
good-hearted  Mrs.  McCarthy  one  Sunday 
morning  to  have  a  little  chat  with  her. 


NELLIE'S  MEAL  TICKET        65 

"The  Lord  only  knows  what'll  become  of 
the  poor  baby,"  said  Mrs.  McCarthy,  as  we 
stood  in  the  door  of  a  little  two  by  twice  apart- 
ment on  the  fourth  floor  of  her  house. 

Inside  I  saw  Nellie's  tousled  blonde  head 
half  buried  in  a  pillow.  Her  face  had  the 
look  that  comes  upon  a  child's  face  after  she 
has  cried  herself  to  sleep. 

"She's  the  lucky  girl  to  be  where  she  is 
right  now,"  whispered  Mrs.  McCarthy,  "be- 
cause 'Bull'  Tevis  is  after  her  these  three 
weeks.  Saturday  she  was  getting  ready  to  go 
out  with  him  when  I  happened  up  here  with 
a  plate  of  stew  that  was  left  over  from  dinner. 

"She  lied  to  me  first,  and  then  I  made  her 
eat  the  stew,  and  when  she'd  eaten  it  she  just 
threw  her  arms  round  me  and  cried  so  she 
shook  from  her  toes  to  the  top  of  her  head — 
the  poor  darlin'." 

"Who  is  Tevis?"  I  ventured. 

"Don't  you  know  the  scout  that  has  been  up 


66      MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

twice  already  for  runnin'  girls  into  them  holes 
out  South?  I  told  the  child  about  him  the 
first  time  he  showed  his  face  at  this  door  to 
call  for  her.  She  said  she'd  never  been  out 
with  him,  but  he  always  wanted  to  take  her 
to  dinner. 

"And  after  she  ate  the  stew  she  took  off  her 
hat  and  then  while  I  sat  with  her  she  took  off 
her  little  best  shoes  and  stockings  and  sat  there 
barefoot  wrigglin'  her  toes. 

"  'Mother  McCarthy,'  she  says,  'I  ain't 
never  been  out  with  Tevis  and  I  ain't 
never  going  out  with  him,  but  I  know  one  of 
the  girls  that  has  been  out  with  him,  and  she 
says  he  buys  swell  things  to  eat.  But  I'm  not 
hungry  no  more  now,  Mother  McCarthy, 
God  bless  you,'  she  says,  'so  hang  Tevis,'  she 
says. 

"Then  I  sat  and  visited  with  her  and  petted 
her  till  she  went  to  sleep  just  like  you  see  her 
now,  and  right  glad  I  am  I  come  up  with 


NELLIE'S  MEAL  TICKET       67 

that  plate  of  stew.  Before  she  went  to  sleep 
she  told  me  how  she  was  living.  It'd  make 
your  heart  ache  to  hear  her. 

"Five  dollars  a  week,  you  see.  There's  two 
for  the  room — and  God  knows  I've  got  to  have 
the  money  or  I  can't  have  a  roof  over  her  or 
me  neither. 

"Well,  the  meal  ticket  she  buys  costs  $3, 
and  she  told  me  how  she  had  been  making  one 
meal  ticket  last  two  weeks.  They  got  out 
some  new-fangled  kind  of  a  ticket  that  had 
funny  ornamental  didoes  on  to  one  end  of  it. 

"About  the  middle  of  the  second  week  poor 
Nellie  lost  track  of  how  many  meals  she  had 
eaten,  and  it  wasn't  until  Friday  night  that  she 
found  out  those  didoes  wasn't  meals.  Then 
she  tried  to  stay  in  bed  from  Friday  to  Mon- 
day when  she  had  four  'days'  pay  coming. 
They'd  laid  her  off  Thursday  night.  Satur- 
day morning  Tevis  called  and  wanted  to  have 
her  meet  him  in  Clark  Street.  That  poor 


68      MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

dear  was  so  hungry  by  then  she  was  going  to 
take  a  chance  with  the  snake  charmer  for  just 
one  dinner.  But  she's  all  right  now." 

I  have  told  the  tale  of  Nellie  Daly  and  good 
Mrs.  McCarthy  because  there  are  thousands 
of  Nellies  and,  I  am  thankful  to  say,  hundreds 
of  Mrs.  McCarthys  in  Chicago,  and,  in  fact, 
every  large  city. 

From  statistics  I  have  gathered  it  is  per- 
fectly certain  to  me  that  the  most  valuable 
first  aid  to  morality  in  Chicago  or  any  other 
big  city  is  the  boarding-house  woman.  Often 
she  either  has  or  has  had  sons  or  daughters  of 
her  own.  She  is  generally  poor  and  often 
hard  beset  with  the  problems  of  life  on  her 
own  account,  but  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  she 
will  tide  the  poor  girl  lodging  in  her  house 
over  a  crisis  like  that  which  confronted  Nellie 
Daly. 

Often  these  good  women  carry  girls  through 
unemployment  for  weeks  without  security  and 


NELLIE'S  MEAL  TICKET       69 

for  no  reasons  whatever  except  those  of  hu- 
manity. The  boarding-house  woman  doesn't 
ask  a  million  questions  about  the  girl  who 
comes  to  her  door.  She  takes  the  girl  in  and 
gives  her  a  bed  and  finds  out  what  chance  she 
has  to  pay  afterwards. 


CHAPTER  VI 

"BULL"  TEVIS 

I  WANT  to  refer  to  the  type  that  "Bull"  Tevis 
represents.  This  man  I  happen  to  know. 
He  tried  to  get  me  to  join  him  at  dinner  one 
evening  while  I  was  working  as  a  clerk  in  a 
downtown  department  store. 

Tevis  has  an  ingratiating  manner.  It  might 
almost  be  attractive  if  one  hadn't  happened  to 
find  out  what  the  man  is.  Tevis  has  a  great 
deal  of  very  dark  hair  that  curls  low  on  his 
forehead.  He  has  a  smile  that  often  attracts 
poor  girls  who  haven't  anybody  to  smile  on 
them  and  whose  days  are  spent  under  the  per- 
petual nagging  of  the  "bawler  out." 

Tevis  has  little,  dark,  beady  eyes  like  a  rat; 
his  jaw  is  a  trifle  undershot.  His  clothes  are 

TO 


"BULL"  TEVIS  71 

always  natty  and  he  wears  a  diamond  in  his 
scarf.  Tevis  has  about  four  to  five  hundred 
girls  in  the  downtown  district  on  his  "mark- 
down"  list.  His  methods  are  subtle — educa- 
tional, one  might  say.  -He  buys  several  fine 
dinners,  I  understand,  before  showing  his 
fangs.  He  is  careful  not  to  flush  the  game 
until  he  has  pretty  well  barred  the  avenues 
of  escape.  He  has  established  a  state  of 
friendship  which  permits  him  to  lend  the  girl 
money,  demanding  nothing  in  return — a 
"brotherly-love"  sort  of  loan. 

Why,  I  have  heard  girls  swear  by  this  man. 
I  have  had  a  perfectly  good  girl  stand  and 
plead  with  me,  tears  in  her  eyes,  not  to  mis- 
judge Tevis,  because  she  knew  him  and  knew 
him  for  one  of  the  best  men  God  ever  made. 

But  Tevis  always  collects — always.  When 
a  girl  gets  so  involved  that  she  doesn't  know 
which  way  to  turn,  Tevis  is  ever  on  hand  to 
show  her  a  way  out. 


72       MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

Tevis'  "way  out"  is  merely  one  of  the  in- 
genious ramifications  of  the  System  that  leads 
further  in.  In  the  end  the  girl  disappears 
completely  from  haunts  that  knew  her,  and  the 
work  of  Tevis  is  complete.  Little  girl  adrift! 
What  chance  has  she  against  these  subtly 
trained  and  carefully  groomed  servants  of  the 
System?  If  they  cannot  get  her  one  way  they 
will  another,  and  the  whole  strength  of  the 
organization  protects  the  procurers.  So- 
ciety's scattered  forces  resist  feebly,  but  the 
System  moves  safely  and  surely  to  a  definite 
end. 

Indirectly  I  discovered  that  "Bull"  Tevis 
had  Mary  Holden's  name  on  his  "watch  list." 
I  had  not  forgotten  the  street  and  number 
where  that  flashily  dressed  youth  in  the  de- 
partment store  basement  told  me  Mary  lived. 
I  decided  to  try  my  luck.  Little  did  I  realize 
what  a  task  it  would  be  to  rescue  the  girl. 

In  a  taxicab  I  was  driven  up  to  the  address 


"BULL"  TEVIS  73 

which  was  in  the  most  questionable  part  of 
Chicago. 

"So  this  is  where  Mary  lives,"  I  solilo- 
quized. "I  can't  believe  it." 

Up  a  rickety  flight  of  stairs  I  walked.  I 
rang  the  bell  on  the  door.  The  house  had  the 
customary  red  front  of  houses  in  that  locality. 
The  door  was  opened  by  a  large  colored 
woman,  who  peered  out  at  me  cautiously. 

"Is  Mary  in?"  I  asked. 

"Who  are  you?"  demanded  the  woman, 
evading  my  question. 

\      "I'm  an  old  friend,"  I  answered,  slipping  a 
five  dollar  note  into  her  hand. 

"Come  in,"  she  said  slyly.  "I'll  get  Mary 
for  you." 

I  entered  the  house  and  the  woman  told  me 
to  wait  in  the  parlor  while  she  went  upstairs 
for  Mary. 

I  sat  in  one  of  the  high-backed  rose-velvet 
chairs.  In  a  glance  I  had  taken  in  the  con- 


74       MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

tents  of  the  room  with  its  cheap  oil  paintings 
of  nude  art,  the  gilded  wicker  chairs,  and  its 
heavy  Battenberg  draperies,  all  of  which  be- 
trayed the  character  of  the  house.  I  looked 
up.  Down  the  staircase  came  a  girl.  Her 
face,  pale,  save  for  the  rouge,  and  black  pen- 
ciling, stood  out  in  high  relief  against  the 
shadows  that  played  up  and  down  the 
hall. 

"You  came  to  see  me?"  she  started.  "Who 
are  you  and  what  do  you  want  with  me?" 

"I  want  to  help  you,"  I  replied. 

"I  don't  need  any  help." 

"Perhaps  you  do?" 

"Not  from  strangers,  anyway,"  she  retorted, 
as  if  fearful  to  commit  herself. 

Her  eyes  looked  into  mine. 

"I  never  saw  you  before  in  my  life,"  she 
said  suspiciously. 

"That  does  not  matter,"  I  returned.  "I 
want  to  get  you  out  of  this  place." 


"BULL"  TEVIS  75 

"You  can't.  We're  watched."  She  glanced 
over  her  shoulder  cautiously. 

"Tell  me  your  name?"  I  asked,  in  a  friendly 
manner.  "Tell  me  your  real,  honest  name, 
the  one  your  mother  calls  you  by,"  I  pleaded. 

A  spasm  of  pain  crossed  the  girl's  face.  I 
had  hit  upon  the  right  chord. 

"It  is  Mary,"  she  whispered. 

"Mary  Holden?"  I  demanded. 

"How  did  you  know?" 

"Because  I  have  come  from  your  mother. 
I  wrote  to  her  and  promised  I  would  bring 
her  little  girl  back  to  her."  I  looked  around 
the  room.  "We  must  get  out  of  here,"  I  con- 
tinued. 

"My  mother?  Where  is  she?"  she  asked 
with  eagerness. 

"Back  in  Limaville,  waiting  for  you,  long- 
ing to  hold  you  in  her  arms  again." 

The  girl  quivered.  Her  large  brown  eyes 
filled  with  tears. 


76      MY  BATTLES  WITH  YICE 

"They  won't  let  me  go,"  she  sobbed.  "If  I 
only  could  go — " 

"Quick,"  I  said,  "I'll  get  you  out." 

I  started  out  into  the  hall  followed  by  Mary. 
I  noiselessly  turned  the  knob,  threw  open  the 
door,  and  came  face  to  face  with  "Bull"  Tevis. 

"What's  the  game,  Kid?"  he  said  to  me, 
blocking  our  exit  with  his  arms.  He  sensed 
the  situation. 

"We  wanted  a  little  air,  that's  all,"  I  replied. 

"So  that's  it,  is  it?  You "  and  a  curse 

fell  from  his  lips.  "You'll  not  get  her."  He 
rushed  forward  to  strike  Mary.  His  upheld 
fist  was  about  to  descend  upon  her  head  when 
I  tripped  him  and  he  sprawled  out  upon  the 
floor.  In  an  instant  he  was  on  his  feet.  He 
made  after  me.  One  hand  catching  my  throat, 
he  forced  me  back  into  the  corner. 

"I'm  going  to  get  you,  and  get  you  good," 
he  muttered  in  a  guttural  tone. 

Mary  saw  her  opportunity  and  availed  her- 


"BULL"  TEVIS  77 

self  of  it.     She  fled  through  the  open  front 
door  and  disappeared. 

Tevis  held  me  tight  in  his  grasp. 

"You'll  not  get  away  so  easily,"  he  sneered. 


jr.. 


CHAPTER  VII 

AT  THE  CAFE  SINISTER 

TEVIS  was  about  to  strike  me  with  his  fist.  He 
stepped  forward;  and  then  he  stepped  back. 
He  might  have  accomplished  his  purpose  had 
not  a  new  actor  appeared  in  this  thrilling 
drama.  The  flippant  youth,  who  had  given 
me  Mary's  address  in  the  department  store 
basement,  entered  from  a  side  room. 

"  'Bull,'  "  said  the  youth,  "what's  up?" 

'This  Kid  got  noisy  and—" 

The  young  man  stood  staring  at  me. 

"What!  do  you  know  her?"  asked  Tevis. 
"Who  is  she,  Bill?" 

Without  answering  Tevis,  Bill  walked  over 
to  me  with  an  outstretched  hand.  I  avoided 
it 

78 


AT  THE  CAFE  SINISTER        79 

"Hello,  Kid,"  he  said.  "Glad  to  see  you 
again.  Is  Tevis  trying  to  scare  you?"  Then 
he  turned  to  Tevis :  "Easy,  easy,  I  say.  This 
Kid  is  all  to  the  mustard." 

"Good  day,  gentlemen,"  I  sai'd,  and  to  my 
surprise  I  was  permitted  to  leave  the  house. 

During  that  day  I  tried  in  vain  to  get  a 
trace  of  Mary.  That  evening  I  met  Lil,  and 
we  decided  to  visit  the  Cafe  Sinister. 

The  waiter  wore  a  shouting  red  necktie  with 
a  diamond  as  big  as  a  filbert  sparkling  from 
its  folds.  His  face  had  the  par-boiled  appear- 
ance that  characterizes  complexions  among 
the  male  habitues  of  the  levee.  He  smiled 
ingratiatingly  at  Lil  and  me. 

We  were  among  the  early  arrivals  at  the 
Cafe  Sinister,  than  which  there  is  no  more 
spectacularly  gilded,  no  more  brilliantly 
lighted  hall  of  evil  fame  within  the  System's 
sphere  of  influence. 

Lil  had  agreed  to  show  me  the  sights — 


8o      MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

to  direct  the  process  of  getting  me  "wised- 
up." 

I  had  never  in  my  life  before  worn  such 
clothes  as  I  wore  that  night,  nor  such  a  hat. 
The  former  was  a  semi-decollete  of  vivid  wine 
color,  and  the  latter  sported  huge  black  plumes 
that  made  me  feel  topheavy.  Lil  waxed  mo- 
mentarily enthusiastic  over  my  appearance  and 
insisted  that  I  was  a  "bear,"  but  she  seemed 
very  tired. 

A  dozen  or  more  couples  sat  about  at  scat- 
tered tables.  Some  of  the  girls  far  outshone 
me  in  decorative  extravagance,  so  I  did  not, 
perhaps,  appear  as  conspicuous  as  I  felt. 

There  were  several  entertainers  lounging 
about  the  place.  A  self-possessed  youth  with 
a  long  dark  cowlick  that  constantly  fell  over 
his  eyes  and  had  to  be  shaken  back,  sang  a 
ballad  and  looked  at  me  right  in  the  eyes  as 
he  did  so,  but  the  ballad  was  sentimental  and 


AT  THE  CAFfi  SINISTER        81 

the  habitues  of  the  place  did  not  like  it.  A 
big  blonde  woman  sitting  alone  at  a  table  re- 
marked stridently  that  it  was  too  early  for 
that  "home  and  mother"  stuff. 

At  another  table — the  one  nearest  our  own 
— sat  a  girl  of  about  eighteen,  a  pretty,  dark- 
haired,  sloe-eyed  child  with  a  flushed  face. 
Beside  her  was  a  gray-haired  man.  His  eyes 
were  nearly  closed,  but  he  proved  to  be  wide 
awake  when  anything  happened  to  attract  his 
attention.  The  girl  was  humming  little 
snatches  of  a  cafe  song  with  a  ragtime  refrain, 
beating  time  on  the  table  top  with  the  rim  of 
a  wine  glass.  I  thought  the  girl  did  not  look 
well.  I  spoke  to  Lil  about  her. 

"Pie-eyed,"  was  my  companion's  terse  com- 
ment. "She  ain't  going  to  last  the  evening 
out." 

The  jeweled  waiter  brought  two  glasses  of 
some  dark  liquid  Lil  had  ordered.  Lil  said 


82       MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

the  drinks  were  "ginger  ale  highballs."  I 
tasted  mine  and  it  was  vile.  It  burned  my 
throat  as  it  went  down. 

I  continued  to  observe  the  pretty  girl  and 
the  gray-haired  man  at  the  other  table.  The 
man  might  have  been  the  girl's  father.  He 
was  certainly  old  enough.  I  noticed  that  he 
drank  little  but  often  filled  the  girl's  glass 
from  a  silver-topped  bottle. 

A  young  fellow  who  looked  like  a  chauffeur 
in  his  puttees  and  a  cap  came  in  and  spoke  to 
the  gray-haired  man,  who  shook  his  head  and 
the  chauffeur  went  outside  again.  Just  then 
the  gray-haired  man  caught  Lil's  eye  and 
nodded  to  her.  She  gave  him  a  little  wave 
of  her  glove  in  return. 

"Who  is  that  man?"  I  asked. 

"Say,  Kid,"  Lil  whispered,  "take  it  from 
me,  he's  a  heller.  That's  Ike— 'Gray  Ike,' 
they  call  him.  Know  what  he's  doing  with 
that  little  doll?  Buyin'  her  wine,  see.  Know 


AT  THE  CAFfi  SINISTER        83 

who's  payin'  for  it?  Him!  Not  Ike.  Not 
in  ten  thousand  years,  Kid — she  is." 

"But  he  paid  for  the  last  bottle,"  I  declared. 
"I  saw  him  get  the  change." 

"Kid,"  yawned  the  sophisticated  Lil,  pat- 
ting her  gaping  jaws  with  her  hand,  "Kid, 
that's  just  an  investment  for  quick  returns. 
It  ain't  his  coin,  see?  He's  a  trailer  for  the 
gang.  He'll  get  all  that  back  and  a  bundle 
besides  when  he  turns  her  over." 

Soon  I  heard  hysterical  sobbing.  Turning 
quickly,  I  saw  that  the  dark-haired  girl  was 
crying.  She  had  a  crumpled  handkerchief 
pressed  to  her  eyes  with  both  hands.  The 
gray-haired  man  had  risen  and  was  shaking 
her  by  the  shoulders. 

"Come  out  of  it,"  he  ordered  sharply. 
"Come  out  of  that,  now — you're  all  right." 

The  girl  took  the  handkerchief  from  her 
eyes  and  turned  up  a  tear-stained  face  to  laugh 
at  the  man. 


84      MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

"Ain't  I  the  little  fool?"  the  girl  giggled — 
"ain't  I  the  limit  for  a  fool?  Say!" 

But  the  girl  was  soon  crying  again,  and  I 
saw  the  chauffeur  again  standing  in  the  back- 
ground. The  girl  began  wailing  aloud.  She 
tried  to  rise  and  staggered.  I  thought  I  heard 
her  say,  "I  want  to  go  to  mother." 

The  gray-haired  man  nodded  to  the  chauf- 
feur. The  waiter  with  the  diamond  came  for- 
ward, and  the  three  men  half  carried,  half 
dragged  the  dark-haired  girl  toward  the  door. 
She  struggled  and  fought. 

Just  then  the  orchestra  struck  up  a  popular 
ragtime  air.  The  fat  blonde  woman  at  the 
table  on  the  other  side  began  singing.  The 
girl  kept  screaming.  For  an  instant  I  forgot 
my  part,  standing  up  from  the  chair  with  an 
indignant  exclamation.  Lil  seized  my  wrist 
and  dragged  me  back  with  an  oath. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

WHAT  HAPPENED  TO  MAIZIE 

"You  little  fool,"  whispered  Lil,  fiercely — 
"think  you're  going  to  butt  in  on  that  stunt?" 

"But  they  are  taking  her  away,"  I  almost 
screamed.  "They're  just  dragging  her." 

"Say,"  snapped  my  companion,  "don't  you 
try  to  do  any  reforming  around  here — not  in 
a  joint  like  this,  Kid.  If  you  take  care  of 
yourself  you'll  have  all  you  can  look  after." 

"But  that  poor  girl,"  I  gasped. 

"It's  a  red  kimono  for  hers,  and  not  much 
else.  Do  you  get  me?"  Lil  replied.  "You 
couldn't  help  her  if  you  howled  all  night, 
so  here's  how." 

Lil  drained  her  glass  and  I  saw  her  shiver. 
It  may  have  been  the  liquor.  I  shivered,  too, 

8s 


86      MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

when  she  made  me  drink  mine,  but,  strange 
to  say,  it  did  not  affect  me  otherwise.  I  was 
too  much  excited.  Outside  I  heard  the  horn 
of  a  taxicab. 

The  waiter  came  over  to  fill  our  glasses 
and  I  thought  he  stared  rather  queerly  at  me 
as  he  said: 

"Maizie's  pickled  to  the  gills,  the  little 
fool.  Beats  all  how  good  he  is  to  her,  too 
— buys  her  everything  her  heart  could  wish 
for,  but  she  will  souse.  Guess  they're  goin' 
to  California  to-morrow." 

Lil  grinned  sardonically. 

"Crazy  about  California,  ain't  he?"  she  re- 
marked. "Makes  about  four  trips  a  year,, 
don't  he?" 

"Well,  you  see,  some  people  can't  stand 
these  winters  in  Chi,"  laughed  the  waiter. 

The  farewell  wail  of  that  little  girl  adrift, 
gone  away  in  the  taxi  with  the  sleepy-eyed, 


WHAT  HAPPENED  TO  MAIZIE     87 

gray-haired  man  rang  in  my  ears.  I  wanted 
to  leave  the  place  then,  thinking  I  had  seen 
enough,  but  Lil  wouldn't  go. 

"Here's  a  couple  of  guys,"  she  whispered. 
"They're  just  rounders  from  a  hotel.  String 
'em  along." 

Two  well  dressed  men  approached,  bowed 
to  us  and  on  Lil's  acknowledgment  seated 
themselves  at  our  table.  One  seemed  about 
forty-five  years  old.  I  thought  the  other 
was  rather  younger. 

"Waiting  at  the  church,  girls?"  inquired 
the  elder  man  jocosely. 

"Studyin'  types  for  a  novel,"  retorted  Lil, 
with  such  readiness  that  I  shot  a  glance  at 
her  painted,  expressionless  face  to  see  whether 
she  had  discovered  me.  But  no,  it  was  Lil's 
little  gift  of  repartee. 

"How're  you  suited,  then?"  inquired  the 
younger  man,  good  naturedly. 


88       MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

"You'll  do,"  laughed  Lil.  "Say,  this  place 
is  like  a  morgue  to-night.  Why  don't  some- 
body start  something?" 

The  younger  of  the  two  men  clapped  his 
hands  and  a  waiter  hurried  across  the  floor. 
I  whispered  to  the  waiter  that  I  wasn't  feel- 
ing well  and  that  I  wanted  ginger  ale.  To 
my  astonishment  he  filled  the  order.  It 
looked  the  same  as  the  other  drinks  and  Lil 
never  knew. 

The  older  man  of  our  party  told  a  story 
about  a  traveling  salesman  and  a  stewardess 
on  a  steamboat.  I  only  understood  half  of 
it,  but  that  half  was  vile. 

Lil  laughed.  She  said  she  first  heard  the 
story  on  a  farm  in  Oklahoma.  I  knew  she 
had  never  been  in  Oklahoma.  Then  the 
other  man  told  a  story,  but  it  was  not  so  bad. 
I  have  noticed  during  my  investigations 
that  tkw  ol  man  who  frequents  low  places 
is  generally  too  low  to  fall  much  farther. 


5VHAT  HAPPENED  TO  MAIZIE     89 

Both  men  left  about  n  o'clock,  after  we 
had  refused  an  invitation  to  a  late  supper. 
Lil  said  we  ought  to  have  accepted,  but  it 
would  have  been  an  "all  night  job"  and  she 
had  to  have  some  sleep. 

A  little  while  after  that  Lil  stepped  to  an- 
other table  where  a  man  and  a  girl  were  sit- 
ting whom  she  knew.  The  place  was 
crowded  with  parties  of  drunken  men  and  wo- 
men by  this  time  and  the  calliope  piano  kept 
up  an  incessant  banging  and  clanging  of  rag- 
time. Occasionally  the  fellow  with  the  cow- 
lick front  hair  or  another  man,  a  dwarf, 
would  sing  disgusting  songs. 

As  soon  as  I  was  left  alone  for  a  moment, 
a  rather  good  looking  young  fellow  came  over 
and  sat  down  beside  me. 

"How  is  traffic?"  he  inquired. 

"Not  very  good,"  I  answered — I  didn't 
know  what  to  say. 

"New  in  town?"  he  pursued. 


90       MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

"Yes,"  I  stammered,  "I'm  from  the  West." 

"Things  slow  out  there?"  he  asked  sym- 
pathetically. 

"Not  much  doing,"  I  rejoined. 

"Well,  let's  have  a  drink,"  chirped  my 
casual  friend.  I  glanced  anxiously  toward 
where  Lil  was  sitting.  She  was  oblivious. 
A  drink  had  been  served  her  at  the  other 
table.  But  the  waiter  again  brought  me  gin- 
ger ale  and  I  was  thankful. 

"Chi's  all  right,"  volunteered  my  compan- 
ion, "but  the  game's  been  crabbed  by  a  lot 
of  old  crowbaits  that  want  to  run  the  earth 
from  the  Y.M.C.A.  A  girl  can  do  well 
enough  here,  though,  if  she  plays  in  with  the 
stir.  I'm  round  here  right  along  and  I  can 
put  you  wise  to  the  live  ones.  Say,  what's 
your  name?" 

I  gave  him  a  false  name  and  a  number  in 
Clark  Street.  These  seemed  to  satisfy  him 
of  my  depravity. 


WHAT  HAPPENED  TO  MAIZIE    91 

"Tell  you  what  I'll  do,"  pursued  the  so- 
licitous stranger,  "I'll  give  you  a  knockdown 
to  a  friend  of  mine  that's  getting  the  money 
in  fruit  baskets.  She's  got  an  eight  room  flat 
a  couple  of  blocks  away.  It's  very  exclu- 
sive— only  the  highest  class  trade.  iWith 
your  get  up  you'll  cop  the  kale,  believe  me. 
Say,  I  like  you,  Kid.  What  d'you  say?" 

"Give  me  the  number  and  I'll  run  in  some 
time  to-morrow,"  I  promised. 

The  young  man  gave  me  a  card  with  a 
name  and  street  number.  Just  then  Lil  came 
back  and  the  fellow  excused  himself,  favor- 
ing me  with  a  parting  wink  which  I  took  to 
enjoin  secrecy. 

"Bah!"  she  snapped.  "Don't  play  his 
game — play  your  own.  Say,  d'ye  know  who 
that  guy  is?  That's  'Simp'  Simon,  but, 
believe  me,  he  ain't  no  simp.  He's  a  wise 
crook  and  he'll  put  you  on  the  skids,  Kid,  if 
you  give  him  a  chance.  I  hadn't  orta  left 


92      MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

you  alone,  but  I  ain't  seen  Ide  since  she  was 
married;  and  say,  what  d'you  think?  She's 
goin'  to  have  a  baby." 

I  glanced  at  Ide.  She  was  drinking 
heavily.  Already  she  was  visibly  intoxi- 
cated. 

"Is  that  man  her  husband?"  I  ventured. 

"Naw!"  laughed  Lil,  "that's  just  a  guy. 
Her  husband's  a  traveling  man." 

It  was  nearly  two  o'clock  and  I  was  dead 
tired,  as  well  as  sick  of  the  sights  and  the 
sounds.  I  begged  Lil  to  go  to  a  car  with 
me.  The  cars  passed  the  door. 

Five  minutes  later  I  was  on  my  way  home. 
Lil  went  back  to  the  cafe.  She  said  she 
guessed  she  would  stay  with  Ide  that  night 
over  at  Ide's  flat. 

Oh,  how  good  home  looked  that  night! 
I  kissed  the  spotless  pillows  of  my  little  white 
bed  before  my  weary  head  touched  them. 

Next   morning    at   breakfast   my   mother 


WHAT  HAPPENED  TO  MAIZIE    93 

handed  me  a  newspaper.  On  the  front  page 
was  an  account  of  a  pretty  girl's  suicide  in 
a  south  side  rooming  house.  The  descrip- 
tion haunted  me  until  I  visited  a  Wabash 
avenue  morgue  where  her  body  lay. 

The  dead  girl  was  Maizie — poor  lost  sis- 
ter Maizie  of  the  cafe.  I  cried  a  good  deal 
that  day. 

The  gray-haired  man  with  the  half -shut 
eyes  no  doubt  has  found  another  tenant  for 
the  red  kimono  Lil  spoke  of. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  TRAIL  OF  [WATCHFUE  JOHNNY 

MARTHA  COLE  was  just  a  little  girl  of  fifteen, 
working  in  a  mail  order  house  when  I  met 
her.  I  was  working  in  the  same  mail  order 
house  looking  for  experience. 

Martha  came  from  a  little  country  town 
and  her  mother  was  very  poor.  [Che  father 
had  been  a  railroad  man — had  died  in  an  ac- 
cident. There  were  two  other  children  and 
Martha  had  to  contribute  as  far  as  possible 
to  the  support  of  the  family. 

The  little  girl  was  paid  six  dollars  a  week. 
While  plainly  clad,  she  was  neat,  and  with 
her  dark  brown  hair,  big,  lustrous  eyes  and 
slight,  childish  figure,  she  was  undeniably 
attractive. 

94 


THE  TRAIL  OF  JOHNNY        95 

Martha's  mother  fell  ill  something  •ver 
a  year  ago  and  the  child  was  appealed  to  for 
funds.  She  was  then  employed  as  a  cashier. 

There  was  no  way  in  the  world  for  Martha 
to  help  her  mother  except  by  borrowing 
money.  She  tried  to  do  this  and  failed. 
Then  she  took  fifteen  dollars  from  the  cash 
of  the  firm  and  sent  it  to  her  poverty-stricken 
home.  For  nine  weeks  she  replaced  a  small 
amount  each  week  out  of  her  pay,  intending 
ultimately  to  discharge  the  whole  debt. 
Then  the  cash  was  audited  and  she  was  dis- 
covered. 

In  a  flood  of  tears  she  told  her  story. 
Twenty  minutes  later  she  was  in  the  street 
without  a  friend,  without  a  character,  a  sick 
mother  on  her  hands  and  no  prospect  of  hon- 
est employment.  One  of  the  girls  she  had 
met  in  the  place  introduced  her  to  "Watch- 
ful Johnny  of  the  System."  Johnny  knew  a 
way  out  of  such  difficulties.  He  lent  money 


96      MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

[to  Martha  to  send  to  her  mother.  From  that 
minute  he  owned  her. 

A  week  later  one  of  the  women  of  the  Res- 
cue Mission  found  Martha  in  red  slippers 
and  a  red  kimono  in  the  very  heart  of  the 
"district."  She  was  delirious  with  drugs 
and  had  almost  forgotten  her  own  name. 
She  was  taken  to  the  Midnight  Mission  and 
put  to  bed.  The  woman  who  had  harbored 
her  was  taken  to  task  for  her  share  in  the 
transaction,  but  she  pleaded  ignorance  of  the 
girl's  story. 

From  the  Midnight  Mission  Martha  was 
taken  to  a  Home  for  Girls.  This  is  a 
"home"  in  the  real  sense.  It  takes  a  girl  in, 
gives  her  aid  and  comfort  and  questions  her 
afterward.  Little  Martha,  who  is  at  heart 
a  good,  honest  girl,  now  has  excellent  em- 
ployment, and  the  fortunes  of  the  Cole  family 
are  at  flood  tide. 

In  connection  with  this  case  I  came  very 


THE  TRAIL  OF  JOHNNY       97 

close  to  landing  the  particular  "Watchful 
Johnny"  who  put  Martha  in  the  "bad  lands," 
but  these  "Johnnies"  be  slippery  fish,  the  Sys- 
tem's protected  workers.  They  command 
the  best  of  legal  talent  and  generally  manage 
to  wriggle  through  holes  in  the  net.  This  fel- 
low found  one,  and  got  away  without  punish- 
ment. I  hope  to  get  him  yet.  We  are  making 
nets  with  smaller  meshes. 

Then  there  was  little  Lizzie  McLean. 
This  child  was  sent  to  Chicago  from  Scotland 
to  be  taken  care  of  by  an  aunt  whom  the 
parents  had  not  known  intimately  for  eighteen 
years. 

Much  may  happen  in  eighteen  years.  The 
aunt  has  been  for  nearly  ten  years  engaged  in 
questionable  rooming  houses.  She  is  by  no 
means  a  delectable  character.  In  fact,  she  has 
a  police  record. 

Of  course  Lizzie  McLean's  parents  in 
bonnie  Scotland  did  not  know  that.  So  when 


98       MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

the  generous  and  wealthy  Chicago  aunt  of  the 
little  Highland  lassie  offered  to  pay  her  way 
to  Chicago  and  find  her  remunerative  employ- 
ment— perhaps  marry  her  to  a  rich  man — the 
old-country  folk  were  very  glad  to  let  their 
pretty  daughter  have  her  chance. 

Now  what  happened  to  Lizzie  when  she 
reached  Chicago  was  this:  She  entered  the 
place  run  by  her  aunt  and  for  a  time  was  per- 
mitted to  absorb  ideas  of  "American  life"  in 
that  atmosphere.  Her  aunt  assured  her  that 
the  patrons  of  the  place,  who  made  so  merry 
and  appeared  to  have  so  much  fun,  were  "lead- 
ing society  men  and  women." 

At  last  one  of  the  "leading  society  men"  be- 
came enamored  of  Lizzie,  who  was  just  en- 
tering her  serenteenth  year.  He  took  her 
about  a  great  deal,  and  Lizzie's  aunt  furnished 
her  with  fashionable  clothes  so  that  she  might 
cut  a  dash  in  the  quasi-fashionable  world. 

One  night  a  girl  jumped  out  of  a  second 


THE  TRAIL  OF  JOHNNY       99 

story  window  of  a  cheap  hotel  and  was  picked 
up  unconscious.  The  hospital  authorities 
said  she  might  die.  An  investigation  revealed 
that  the  girl  had  been  taken  to  the  hotel  by 
a  man,  but  the  man's  identity  was  lost.  He 
had  disappeared. 

Subsequently  Lizzie  told  me  what  had  hap- 
pened. The  "leading  society  man"  had  taken 
her  to  the  hotel  on  the  pretext  that  he  was  to 
meet  her  aunt  there,  and  they  were  all  to  dine 
together.  The  man  lied.  What  followed 
caused  Lizzie  to  jump  out  of  the  window. 

Lizzie's  aunt  is  now  a  fugitive  from  justice 
and  Lizzie  is  employed  in  a  satisfactory  way. 
She  is  under  the  protection  of  women  who  will 
see  that  she  does  not  again  fall  into  the  hands 
of  our  familiar  friend  "Watchful  Johnny" 
who  ofttimes  masquerades  as  a  "leading  so- 
ciety man." 

Now  harken  to  the  story  of  Sarah  Roe. 
Fourteen  years  old,  Sarah  was,  when  she 


ioo     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

walked  into  the  Polk  Street  station  with  the 
vague  idea  that  she  could  find  relatives  in 
Lake  View.  Probably  the  old  mother  of 
Sarah,  who  sent  her  West  because  she  was 
unable  to  support  her,  supposed  Lake  View 
was  a  place  where  it  was  easy  to  find  out  from 
the  neighbors  where  anybody  lived. 

When  I  became  acquainted  with  Sarah  it 
was  in  a  saloon  rear  room.  She  was  with  two 
other  women,  and  her  innocent  young  face 
attracted  my  attention.  I  sat  down  at  the 
table  where  Sarah  was.  She  was  very  green. 
The  other  women  told  me  she  had  knocked  at 
their  door  a  few  nights  before  and  asked  for 
shelter.  The  companions  of  the  girl  belong 
to  that  class  of  "married"  women  that  fre- 
quent back  rooms  of  saloons. 

Fifteen  minutes'  talk  with  Sarah  convinced 
me  that  she  was  with  dangerous  company. 
She  had  been  told  by  the  women  with  whom 
I  found  her  that  the  easiest  way  for  her  would 


THE  TRAIL  OF  JOHNNY      101 

be  to  "pick  up  a  friend."  I  took  Sarah  with 
me  against  the  protests  of  these  harridans  who 
said  that  they  had  done  "everything  for  her." 
Sarah  is  now  a  cashier  in  a  downtown  restau- 
rant, employed  by  a  kind-hearted  man,  who 
pays  her  well  and  tells  me  that  she  is  thor- 
oughly competent.  Also  she  is  under  the  pro- 
tection of  an  organization  that  will  protect 
her  in  the  future.  It  was  only  good  fortune 
that  Sarah  escaped  the  hawk  eyes  and  talons 
of  "Watchful  Johnny  of  the  System." 

This  sounds  like  repetition,  doesn't  it? 
Well,  the  troubles  of  the  girl  adrift  are  sin- 
gularly alike.  They  have  a  familiar  ring  when 
one  hears  them  from  trembling  lips  twenty  or 
thirty  times  a  week.  The  reason  I  am  telling 
of  these  girls  one  after  another  in  this  way  is 

that  I  want  to  hammer  home  the  truth  about 

• 

the  problem  that  confronts  us. 

So  I'm  going  right  on  with  my  story. 

Four  girls  came  to  Chicago  from  a  little 


102     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

town  one  evening  and  went  direct  to  a  house 
in  Armour  Avenue,  the  address  of  which  had 
been  given  them  by  a  man  who  had  visited 
their  town  the  night  before.  He  became 
too  friendly  with  one  of  the  girls,  Carrol 
Brown,  aged  eighteen.  Carrol  was  so  fas- 
cinated with  the  tales  this  man  told  her  of 
gayety  at  the  Armour  Avenue  place  that  she 
persuaded  three  other  young  girls  to  join  her 
in  an  expedition.  It  was  a  runaway.  You 
see,  this  man  did  not  violate  the  Mann  Act. 
He  merely  told  stories  of  Chicago  fairyland 
likely  to  appeal  to  the  fancy  of  a  country-town 
girl. 

The  woman  in  charge  of  this  place  took  the 
girls  in,  but  after  talking  to  them  she  became 
convinced  that  they  were  novices. 

Now,  one  novice  might  be  handled  without 
too  much  trouble,  but  four  novices  spell 
"danger"  in  large  capital  letters.  The  woman 
became  alarmed,  and,  being  wise  in  her  gen- 


THE  TRAIL  OF  JOHNNY      103 

eration,  she  notified  the  Rescue  Home  people. 
Two  of  the  women  from  the  mission  arrived 
and  took  these  girls  away.  The  woman  who 
called  up  made  much  of  her  determination 
"never  to  be  instrumental  in  the  fall  of  an 
innocent  girl." 

What  she  feared  was  the  consequences. 
One  of  the  girls — the  Brown  girl — is  nat- 
urally bad.  She  has  been  put  in  five  different 
employments  since  her  release  from  the  Ar- 
mour Avenue  place.  She  is  subnormal,  and 
it  may  be  difficult  to  save  her.  The  real  place 
for  her  is  a  hospital,  because  her  ailment  is 
largely  mental.  The  others  were  very  glad 
to  be  taken  care  of.  One  of  them  is  the  wife 
of  a  respectable  mechanic,  two  are  employees 
of  a  downtown  firm  that  finds  them  competent, 
and  the  other  is  the  protegee  as  ladies'  maid  of 
one  of  the  best  known  women  in  the  city.  She 
is  a  gifted  child,  with  no  real  vice  about  her. 
Once  again  "Watchful  Johnny"  was  foiled. 


104     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

One  afternoon  I  was  walking  in  Clark 
Street  when  I  met  a  girl  who  did  not  seem  to 
be  more  than  fourteen.  She  was  pretty,  her 
pert  little  nose  was  held  high,  and  the  cheap 
clothes  clung  to  her  with  a  certain  chic  that 
distinguished  her. 

I  stopped  to  speak.  She  was  uppish  at  first 
and  then  interested.  I  asked  her  where  she 
was  working,  and  she  told  me  she  had  been 
discharged  from  a  department  store  because  of 
inexperience.  She  had  met  a  "fellow"  who 
was  going  to  marry  her.  She  became  con- 
fidential and  told  me  that  she  was  really 
living  with  the  man  over  in  North  Dearborn 
Street,  but  it  was  only  to  be  for  a  couple  of 
weeks;  the  reason  was  that  if  his  folks  knew 
he  was  married  in  advance  of  certain  legal 
procedure  he  would  lose  several  thousand 
dollars. 

The  story  sounded  rather  familiar.  I 
wanted  to  see  the  man.  She  was  delighted  at 


THE  TRAIL  OF  JOHNNY      105 

having  found  a  friend  who  was  not  shocked 
at  her  story,  and  agreed  to  take  me  with  her 
to  meet  "Tom,"  who  was  to  be  in  the  rear  room 
of  a  Clark  Street  saloon  at  2  P.  M.  When  I 
entered  that  room  with  the  girl  her  putative 
future  husband  nearly  tore  off  the  spring  doors 
getting  through  them  to  the  street. 

The  man  was  "Watchful  Johnny"  in  one  of 
his  disguises. 

Katie  lived  in  a  little  town  clown  state  where 
she  was  one  of  the  belles.  I  corresponded 
with  her  mother,  who  turned  out  to  be  a  per- 
fectly incompetent  sort  of  person.  There  are 
too  many  such  incompetent  parents. 

The  Home  for  Girls  took  care  of  Katie. 
Nobody  knew  what  happened  except  myself 
and  the  superintendent  of  the  Home.  Katie 
was  there  four  weeks,  and  she  proved  herself 
a  bright  little  housekeeper.  Now  she  is  tak- 
ing care  of  the  summer  home  of  excellent 
people  at  Lake  Carver.  They  know  all  about 


106     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

her,  but  she  doesn't  know  it,  and  they  are  too 
clever  to  let  her  suspect  that  they  do.  The 
girl  is  giving  satisfaction,  and  the  woman  who 
took  her  is  going  to  give  her  an  expensive 
course  of  instruction  in  domestic  science.  She 
says  Katie  is  worth  it. 

So,  you  see,  all  girls  adrift  are  not  entirely 
lost.  Some  of  them  are  saved.  I  wish  the 
proportion  were  greater.  I  am  going  to  tell 
in  the  concluding  chapters  of  this  story  how 
more  girls  may  be  saved.  Still  no  word  as  to 
Mary  Holden's  whereabouts.  Lil  has  prom- 
ised to  aid  me  in  the  search. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  BEXELWAUM  BALL 

LlL  wanted  me  to  go  to  the  Bexelwaum  ball. 
It  was  more  or  less  a  special  occasion,  she  told 
me,  and  a  good  many  of  the  girls  I  had  met 
downtown  in  my  capacity  as  a  working  clerk 
were  to  be  there. 

My  friend  would  not  let  me  costume  myself. 
She  insisted  on  "fixing"  me  for  the  dance. 
When  she  had  "fixed"  me  I  looked  so  awful 
that  I  might  easily  have  been  arrested  on  sus- 
picion. Hair  of  a  half  dozen  shades  was 
piled  on  my  head ;  I  was  decked  out  with  cheap 
jewelry  and  ribbons  until  I  looked  like  a 
Christmas  tree. 

The  hour  was  ten  when  we  arrived  at  the 
hall.  We  bought  tickets  and  made  our 

way  to  the  floor.     It  is  really  a  beautiful  ball- 

107 


io8     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

room,  splendidly  lighted  and  decorated.  It 
is  no  wonder  that  girls  go  there  who  have  no 
means  of  knowing  just  how  bad  the  place 
really  is. 

The  orchestra  played  some  seductive  synco- 
pated thing  and  the  couples  already  on  the 
floor  were  dancing  it  to  all  sorts  of  steps.  A 
man  they  told  me  was  Tango  Tim  was  doing 
a  grotesque  and  suggestive  dance  all  by  him- 
self in  the  center  of  the  floor.  I  was  told  that 
he  received  pay  as  a  professional  entertainer. 
He  ought  to  get  seven  years  without  the  option 
of  a  fine. 

This  was  a  "costume"  dance.  Some  of  the 
girls  had  their  gowns  far  above  their  knees 
and  cut  so  low  at  the  top  that  very  little  was 
left  to  the  imagination.  I  think  most  of  these 
girls  were  between  sixteen  and  eighteen  years, 
though  there  was  the  class  of  old  habitues, 
perhaps  anywhere  from  twenty- five  to  thirty 
years  old. 


THE  BEXELWAUM  BALL      109 

The  crowd  kept  increasing  until  the  cafe 
with  its  innumerable  tables  for  drinks  and  the 
main  floor  were  both  packed.  The  characters 
included  cowboys,  soldiers,  sailors,  comedy 
Irish,  French,  Italian  and  Russian.  There 
were  soubrettes,  ballet  dancers,  waitresses, 
nursemaids,  Salvation  army  sisters,  "baby 
dolls,"  and  circus  riders.  Nearly  all  the  girls 
had  apparently  striven  for  the  most  startling 
display  of  shoulders,  arms  and  legs.  There 
never  was  a  musical  comedy  staged  that  could 
have  equaled  this  display  of  briefly  adorned 
femininity. 

And  there  was  no  denying  the  fascination 
of  this  place.  It  is  a  blaze  of  light.  Much 
to  gratify  the  senses  is  offered  at  Bexelwaum's. 

Professor  Tango  Tim  alternated  with  a 
soubrette  young  person  of  extraordinary  grace 
and  sinuousness,  who  did  the  "Siamese  Slip" 
all  by  herself  and  so  popularized  the  move- 
ment that  scores  of  girls  all  over  the  floor  were 


:iio    MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

trying  it  within  a  few  minutes.  The  Siamese 
thing  calls  for  all  sorts  of  back-bending,  twist- 
ings  and  contortions  of  the  upper  body. 

The  girls  with  the  very  ill-fitting  and  very 
low-necked  gowns  could  not  even  attempt  these 
movements  without  over-emphasizing  the  low- 
ness  of  their  gowns  or  revealing  the  shortness 
of  them. 

The  young  woman  dancing  professionally 
had  some  sort  of  fluffy  lingerie  that  protected 
her  in  the  daring  kicks  and  twists  she  exe- 
cuted, but  the  amateurs  had  the  advantage  of 
no  such  equipment.  I  never  witnessed  so 
amazing  an  exhibition  as  developed  out  of  the 
general  desire  to  Siamese. 

Very  soon  the  proximity  of  the  cafe  tables 
and  the  liberal  supplies  of  intoxicants  pro- 
duced their  inevitable  result. 

One  of  the  first  to  become  palpably  intoxi- 
cated was  a  young  woman  dressed  as  an  In- 
dian squaw  with  a  real  baby  strapped  to  her 


THE  BEXELWAUM  BALL      in 

back.  The  girl's  face  was  stained  a  dull  red 
and  the  poor  baby  was  dyed  a  like  color.  The 
little  thing  was  asleep  when  my  attention  was 
attracted  by  the  loud  talk  of  the  "squaw" 
mother.  A  girl  who  told  me  she  was  the 
"squaw's"  sister  berated  the  latter  for  pinching 
the  infant  to  wake  it  up  so  that  it  would  cry 
and  attract  attention  to  her  makeup. 

Afterward  I  saw  her  punch  the  child  my- 
self, and  the  child  cried.  I  spoke  to  her,  and 
she  laughed  as  she  admitted  that  she  wanted 
the  child  to  cry.  She  thought  if  the  baby 
cried  she  would  get  first  prize  for  originality 
in  her  characterization.  She  was  carrying  the 
baby  on  her  back,  Indian  fashion.  Its  poor 
little  weazened  face  lolled  over  her  shoulder 
and  its  eyes  closed  in  utter  exhaustion,  despite 
her  brutality. 

I  had  no  lack  of  partners.  Lil  saw  to  that, 
and,  anyway,  there  were  no  formalities. 
Young  men  asked  me  to  dance  and  I  did. 


ii2     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

The  couples  who  were  drinking — and  I  think 
most  all  of  them  were — became  more  and  more 
daring  as  the  time  passed.  The  most  simple 
dance  can  be  made  suggestive  by  drunken  men 
and  women. 

I  must  have  danced  with  six  or  seven  part- 
ners in  the  first  two  hours  of  the  affair.  Every 
single  one  of  them  asked  me,  as  though  it  were 
part  of  the  evening's  entertainment,  whether 
they  could  "come  up  to  the  flat."  The  aston- 
ishing part  of  it  was  that  hardly  one  of  them 
was  out  of  his  teens.  The  way  these  boys 
talked  to  me  was  enlightening. 

For  instance :  I  danced  with  a  lad  not  over 
twenty.  We  had  done  a  few  turns  around  the 
hall  in  a  two-step.  I  could  not  do  the  things 
he  did  with  the  dance.  He  had  all  sorts  of 
variations  of  the  step. 

"You  want  to  come  in  with  the  flop,"  he  told 
me. 


THE  BEXELWAUM  BALL      113 

"What's  the  flop?"  I  inquired. 

"Well,"  he  enlightened  me,  "when  I  lean 
back  this  way  you  want  to  tumble  forward  this 
way." 

He  illustrated  how  the  thing  ought  to  be 
done  from  his  point  of  view.  I  blushed.  It 
was  an  atrocious  suggestion.  I  pretended  that 
I  couldn't  understand  him  and  refused  to  do 
what  he  wanted. 

"Why,"  he  said,  "all  these  old  time  dances 
are  on  the  blink.  Nobody  dances  'em,  and 
nobody  wants  'em.  You've  got  to  get  some 
action  into  a  dance  nowadays  or  you  can't  put 
it  across." 

"What  do  you  think  the  dance  really  ought 
to  be?"  I  asked  him.  He  was  a  very  young 
fellow  and  it  appeared  to  me  he  might  be 
decent  if  he  had  the  chance. 

"Well,"  he  answered,  reflectively,  "I  figure 
that  dancing  and  hunting  with  a  gun  are  just 


ii4     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

about  the  same.  If  the  guys  that  come  here 
to  this  place  had  any  show,  they'd  rather  go 
rabbit  hunting,  maybe." 

"Well,  is  this  a  hunt  instead  of  dance?"  I 
begged. 

"Sure  it  is,"  he  responded,  readily  enough, 
and  laughing  at  my  ignorance.  "All  this  stuff 
is  phony.  The  guys  don't  give  a  care  about 
dancing.  They  know  that  the  girls  like  to 
dance,  and  they  know  the  girls  will  be  here  in 
flocks.  So  if  a  fellow  wants  to  cop  off  a  girl, 
here's  where  he  comes."% 

"But  don't  girls  come  here  who  can't  be 
'copped  off,'  as  you  call  it?"  I  suggested. 

"Oh,  once  in  a  while  there's  a  kid  that's 
straight  and  just  happens  to  float  in,"  he  an- 
swered, "but,  you  see,  they  all  get  wise  to  it 
pretty  soon.  They  don't  want  any  girl  to 
come  to  these  doin's  unless  she's  playing  the 
game  all  the  way  down  the  line.  Most  of 
'em  are  gold  diggers,  at  that." 


THE  BEXELWAUM  BALL      115 

"What's  a  gold  digger?"  I  queried. 

"Say,"  answered  my  young  friend,  "maybe 
you  come  from  the  hills  around  Gary,  but  I 
'don't  know  any  of  that  bunch  that  talks  the 
way  you  do.  A  gold  digger  is  a  miner." 

"Yes,"  I  agreed,  "but  how  does  being  a 
'miner'  and  a  'gold  digger'  apply  to  that  little 
girl  over  there,  for  instance?" 

"That  kid  with  the  red  hat?"  he  inquired, 
pointing.  "Why,  she's  the  queen.  That's 
Chrissy  Tate.  Why,  Kid,  she's  got  cards  and 
spades  on  'em  all.  She  can  get  money  from  a 
'Gypshun'  mummy,  believe  me." 

"But  she  looks  like  just  a  little  girl,"  I  told 
him.  The  boy  had  such  nice  eyes  I  thought 
there  might  be  an  undercurrent  of  decency 
about  him. 

"Kid,"  he  said,  with  his  worldly-wise  look, 
"Chrissy's  been  travelin'  this  route  for  four 
years,  and  she  knows  more  about  what's  going 
on  along  the  trail  than  any  of  them.  First  she 


n6    MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

used  to  be  'Steve's'  girl,  and  she  beat  him  up 
with  one  of  his  own  bottles.  He  got  scared  of 
her,  and  since  that  she's  traveled  under  eight 
different  names.  There's  a  funny  thing  about 
that  Chrissy.  Do  you  know  what  she  does? 
When  anybody  is  on  to  her  she  gets  out  a  lot 
of  old  dolls  she's  got  in  a  trunk  and  plays  with 
'em.  Steve  told  me  he  came  home  one  night 
and  found  her  sittin'  in  the  middle  of  the 
parlor  floor  playin'  with  a  regular  layout  of 
dolls. 

"  'You're  sure  crazy,'  says  Steve,  'put  them 
things  in  the  ash  can.' " 

"And  he  says  Chrissy  gathered  all  them  fool 
dolls  up  in  a  bunch  in  her  arms  and  sat  up  and 
cried  all  night.  Now  what  the  hell  do  you 
think  of  that?" 


CHAPTER  XI 

HER  RETROSPECTION 

THE  head  floor-manager,  distinguished  by  a 
dignified  manner,  a  pair  of  narrow  dark  eyes 
that  suggested  villainy,  a  new  fifteen  dollar 
suit  and  a  checked  tie,  signaled  for  the  next 
dance,  and  my  young,  too  sophisticated  part- 
ner darted  away.  The  orchestra,  hidden  be- 
hind a  table  piled  high  with  empty  beer  bot- 
tles, struck  up  a  noisy  tune  with  much  em- 
phasis on  the  brass  instruments.  The  dance 
was  on  in  full  swing. 

For  all  the  intent  hilarity  of  the  crowd,  to 
me  the  scene  was  intensely  pathetic.  A  large 
percentage  of  the  crowd  were  tipsy.  The 
scene  was  perfectly  disreputable.  There  was 
nobody  there  who  tried  to  make  it  respectable, 

117 


ii8     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

and  had  there  been,  that  person  probably 
would  not  have  dared. 

A  much  intoxicated  man  walked  over  to  a 
girl  standing  near  me. 

"Do  you  Tango?"  he  asked. 

Boldly  he  offered  her  his  arm,  and  the  two 
shuffled  off.  Like  many  of  the  others  they 
were  too  weary  to  dance  much,  and  before 
long  I  noticed  they  stopped  their  gyrations 
and  sat  down  at  a  table  to  partake  of  the  amber 
fluid. 

The  majority  of  the  dancers  were  fast  be- 
coming awkward,  and  some  lost  step  alto- 
gether. Couples  bumped  one  another,  leav- 
ing trails  of  human  hate  in  their  wake. 

A  woman  with  a  hard,  painted  face  came 
over  to  me  and  asked  me  where  I  was  staying. 
I  told  her  I  had  a  good  deal  of  trouble  finding 
a  "right"  place  to  stay. 

"Why,  say,"  she  said,  "you  ought  to  be  get- 


HER  RETROSPECTION         119 

ting  the  kale  while  you're  young.  Don't  let 
none  of  those  flim-flammin'  youths  get  hold  of 
you.  Cut  out  the  love  stuff,  see?  Get  a  guy 
that's  got  one  foot  in  Graceland  and  one  in 

.  There's  millions  of  them  in  Chicago, 

and  they're  your  meat." 

"Yes,"  I  volunteered. 

"If  a  girl  can't  get  what  she  wants  one  way, 
she's  got  to  get  it  another." 

"What  really  does  a  girl  want?"  I  sug- 
gested. 

If  I  live  to  be  a  hundred  years  old  I  shall 
never  forget  the  strange  look  that  came  into 
that  creature's  face. 

"What  does  a  girl  want?"  she  croaked. 
"Why,  what  she  wants  is  what  she  can't  get." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  that?"  I  inquired. 

"Why,"  she  retorted,  "men  want  women 
just  to  amuse  them.  I  was  married  once — 
not  long  ago,  either — only  five  years." 


120    MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

I  looked  at  the  hard,  painted  face.  It  was 
cruel,  but  she  must  have  understood,  for  she 
laughed  in  my  face. 

"Say,"  she  went  on,  "I've  got  a  baby  some- 
where. He  made  me  let  one  of  them  homes 
adopt  it.  Now  I  can't  find  out  where  the 
child  is.  God!  Do  you  suppose  I  care  any- 
thing about  floating  around  with  this  bunch? 
We  had  over  a  thousand  dollars,  and  then  he 
went  to  work  for  a  brewery.  Then  the  brew- 
ery put  him  to  work  collecting  in  the  'dis- 
trict.' After  he  got  in  there  he  used  to  come 
home  'pickled'  every  night.  Then  he  got  to 
staying  out.  That  time  I  was  expecting  the 
baby.  I  had  to  have  attention  in  a  hospital, 
and  they  told  me  I  couldn't  look  after  a  baby 
for  a  long  time,  and  I'd  have  to  get  somebody 
to  care  for  it  You  know,  a  woman  doesn't 
know  much  about  her  baby  before  she  gets  it 
Afterward  is  when  she  wants  it 

"So  I  let  them  persuade  me  that  my  baby 


HER  RETROSPECTION        121 

would  be  too  much  for  me,  and  they  sent  it  to 
a  'home.'  My  little  kid— God!  I  hain't 
ever  set  eyes  on  her.  They  took  her  away  be- 
fore I  ever  knew  she  was  on  earth. 

"So,  here's  me,  see?  I'm  not  much  good 
now.  I'm  pretty  bad.  I  make  men  pay  me 
now,  see?  I  hate  men  and  I  hate  women.  I 
hate  all  the  crazy  kids  that  storm  around  this 
place.  I'm  married  all  right,  but  what's  the 
use  of  a  man  like  that?  Why,  he's  worse  than 
no  man  at  all." 

It  was  this  woman  who  introduced  me  to 
Chrissy,  the  pretty  girl  with  the  child  face. 
I  talked  to  her  for  a  long  time.  We  danced 
in  the  same  set  later  in  the  evening.  Since 
that  Chrissy  and  I  have  been  very  friendly. 
She  lets  me  go  to  see  her.  She  has  promised 
that  she  would  try  to  break  away  from  the  halls 
and  get  a  new  start.  I  don't  know  whether 
she  will  keep  her  promise,  but  I  hope  so. 

Lil  had  been  so  busy  with  the  men  that  she 


122     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

almost  forgot  me.  Just  as  I  was  leaving  she 
asked  if  I  had  had  a  good  time. 

"I  was  interested,"  I  replied. 

"Going  home  alone?"  she  demanded. 

"I  guess  that  is  the  best  way  to  go — from 
here,"  I  smiled. 

"Aw,  Kid,  don't  hurry,"  she  urged.  "The 
fun  is  just  beginning." 

I  told  her  I  was  tired  and  must  get  some 
sleep. 

"Please  be  careful,  and  I  hope  you  find 
the  missing  Kid,"  she  said,  as  I  left  the 
hall. 

When  I  returned  home  I  asked  my  mother 
if  she  had  received  any  word  from  Mary, 
pretty  Mary  Holden.  I  could  see  by  the  ex- 
pression on  her  face  that  she  believed  my  task 
a  hopeless  one.  At  any  rate  I  told  her  I  was 
learning  a  great  deal  about  the  big  city  and  its 
traps  for  girls  adrift. 


CHAPTER  XII 

QUEER  FISH  IN  THE  DEPTHS 

HUMAN  nature  becomes  the  more  puzzling  as 
its  deeper  soundings  are  explored.  Down  in 
the  depths  there  are  some  very  queer  fish- 
fish  with  only  a  few  of  the  sensibilities  of  sur- 
face species ;  invertebrates  in  the  majority,  pur- 
blind drifters  with  the  shifting  tides. 

Over  on  the  north  side  is  a  policeman  who 
has  made  a  great  deal  of  money  out  of  his  con- 
nection with  the  vice  traffic.  He  got  only  the 
droppings  from  overloaded  bags  that  went  to 
the  men  higher  up,  but  even  these  were  suffi- 
cient to  buy  a  house  and  some  very  respectable 
interest-bearing  securities.  Chicago's  girls 
adrift  paid  for  the  house  and  the  securities,  of 

course,  but  what  I  am  trying  to  point  out  is 

123 


124     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

the  contradictoriness  of  the  grafter's  char- 
acter. 

For  this  policeman  is  a  regular  attendant  at 
church ;  he  has  a  family  of  well  kept  children ; 
his  wife  swears  by  him;  his  superiors  insist 
that  he  is  a  valuable  officer. 

Now,  here  is  another  contradiction:  One 
night  last  winter — a  very  cold  night,  too — I 
witnessed  a  transaction  at  the  corner  of  Con- 
gress Street  and  Wabash  Avenue  that  made  me 
ponder.  A  poor  shivering  little  girl  stepped 
from  a  doorway  and  accosted  a  man  who  had 
just  emerged  from  a  taxi-cab.  The  man  I  had 
seen  before.  The  girl  I  did  not  know.  She 
seemed  to  be  about  seventeen. 

I  saw  the  man's  hand  go  into  his  pocket,  and 
then  it  was  extended  toward  the  suppliant,  as 
he  passed  quickly  into  a  nearby  building. 
The  girl  stood  staring  at  a  $5  bill  the  man 
had  given  her. 

It  was  then  that  I  approached  the  girl  and 


QUEER  FISH  IN  THE  DEPTHS     125 

asked  her  if  I  could  help  her.  I  carried  some 
cards  in  my  pocket  book  which  called  for  the 
admission  of  friendless  children  such  as  this 
one  seemed  to  be  to  a  shelter  that  feeds  them 
without  demanding  histories  of  their  lives  in 
advance.  Sometimes  they  use  the  cards,  but 
not  often.  This  girl  laughed  shrilly  as  I 
spoke  to  her  and  showed  me  the  $5  bill. 

"What  do  you  know  about  that?"  she  de- 
clared; "an'  I  never  saw  him  before  in  my 
life." 

The  man  I  had  recognized  in  the  act  of 
doing  an  apparently  generous  act  was  "Ike, 
the  Kike,"  notorious  around  the  world  as  a 
trafficker  in  women.  I  told  the  girl  who  her 
casual  benefactor  was,  and  she  cursed  me  ex- 
pertly for  my  interference. 

"Suppose  he  is  just  what  you  say,"  she  said. 
"D'you  think  I  could  walk  up  to  one  of  your 
God-A'mighty  crowd  if  I  was  broke  like  I 
am  to-night  and  touch  'em  for  a  five?  Not 


126     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

on  your  family  Bible,  Kid.  I'd  get  a  ticket 
rfor  soup,  more  likely.  That  guy?  Why, 
say,  he's  got  a  heart  in  him." 

Now,  I  don't  know  what  induced  "Ike,  the 
Kike"  to  give  away  part  of  his  slimy  earn- 
ings— whether  it  was  a  spasm  of  pity,  a  be- 
lated twinge  of  an  atrophied  conscience,  a 
touch  of  swagger — perhaps  the  recklessness  of 
inebriety,  but  when  I  saw  the  girl  entering  a 
corner  cafe,  intent,  as  she  said,  on  "big  eats," 
I  fell  once  more  into  reflection  upon  the 
strange  contradictions  one  encounters  in  an 
underworld  character. 

Take  another  case,  that  of  a  young  woman 
I  know  who  went  as  straight  as  an  arrow  from 
a  Chicago  high  school  to  a  place  of  evil  fame 
known  from  Paris  to  Vladivostok.  This  girl 
told  me  her  views  in  a  dispassionate  way.  She 
was  gentle  with  me  and  behaved  throughout 
as  though  I  were  a  silly,  argumentative  child 
in  need  of  correction. 


QUEER  FISH  IN  THE  DEPTHS     127 

Of  course,  I  was  trying  to  get  the  girl  out 
of  the  place;  my  visit  was  on  behalf  of  an  or- 
ganization devoted  to  such  rescue  work. 

"Why  do  you  sociologists  bother  with  peo- 
ple like  me?"  she  demanded.  "Why  don't 
you  begin  your  work  in  the  public  schools — 
yes,  and  in  the  private  schools  too — and  build 
for  the  future  by  teaching  boys  and  girls  to  be 
decent  human  beings  at  ages  when  they  can  be 
taught,  when  they  are  not  already  depraved?" 

A  sudden  sharp  twinge  ran  through  my 
being.  What  if  I  should  find  Mary  Holden 
and  hear  her  speak  like  my  high  school  friend? 
The  horror  of  it  caused  me  to  shudder. 

I  admitted  that  we  ought  to  do  more  sym- 
pathetic work  in  the  schools  and  churches 
and  homes,  but  emphasized  my  immediate 
case,  which  was  her  own.  I  wanted  her  to 
leave  with  me. 

"No,  I'm  not  going  to  leave  here,"  the  girl 
declared  stubbornly.  "I  can  tell  myself  the 


ia8     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

truth  about  myself  here — which  is  something. 
I  never  allowed  myself  to  consider  the  truth 
about  my  own  character  until  I  was  frankly 
and  avowedly  lost.  Then  I  took  an  inventory 
and  found  I  wasn't  a  bit  worse  than  I  had  been 
for  years." 

"You  aren't  alone  in  the  world,  you  know," 
I  urged.  "It  isn't  too  late  for  you  to  try 
again." 

"That  sounds  all  right,  but  it  isn't  true," 
was  the  response.  "I  tell  you  it  is  no  use  try- 
ing to  rescue  girls  who  have  joined  the  army 
—most  of  them  don't  want  to  be  rescued. 
They  dread  the  horrors  of  the  climb  back  and 
had  rather  die  than  try. 

"I  was  a  bad  girl,  as  you  call  it,  when  I  was 
fourteen,  and  they  said  I  was  the  brightest 
girl  in  my  grade.  I  believe  I  was,  too. 
Study  came  easily  for  me,  but  so  did  wicked- 
ness. I  was  as  wicked  as  I  was  clever. 

"My  father  was  a  traveling  lecturer,  and 


QUEER  FISH  IN  THE  DEPTHS     129 

my  mother  traveled  with  him.  I  lived  with 
my  aunt,  who  was  prominent  in  four  or  five 
women's  clubs.  The  school  I  attended  was  as 
bad,  morally  speaking,  as  this  place  is,  and 
worse. 

"I'll  tell  you  another  thing.  For  one  girl 
who  gets  found  out  and  has  to  hustle  out  of  the 
way  of  the  hypocrites  who  don't  get  found  out, 
there  are  twenty  just  as  bad  as  she  is  who 
marry  and  graduate  into  the  ranks  of  the  're- 
spectable.' 

"There  is  eternal  shouting  and  exhorting 
against  the  immorality  and  vice  of  the  levee, 
but  I  wonder  if  it  isn't  society's  hue  and  cry 
to  divert  attention  from  viciousness  in  what 
you  call  'the  best  circles,'  a  condition  that  is  a 
hundred  times  more  important." 

By  this  time  the  room  in  which  we  were 
conversing  held  an  interested  audience  of 
painted,  bright-eyed  women.  They  ap- 
plauded the  girl  who  was  speaking. 


130     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

"Why  are  you  forever  twisting  the  tail  of 
the  dog?"  she  asked.  "It  is  the  other  end  that 
bites." 

Everybody  laughed. 

"That  is  false  philosophy,"  I  declared. 
"You  are  eighteen,  with  the  world  before  you 
if  you  will  only  give  yourself  a  chance." 

"Wrong  again,"  she  laughed.  "Most  of  it 
is  behind  me.  When  a  girl  knows  what  I 
know  she  is  a  fool  to  lie  to  herself.  I'm  look- 
ing the  facts  in  the  face.  If  I Ve  got  to  go  to 
hell  I'm  going  with  my  eyes  open." 

That  girl  is  still  a  denizen  in  the  depths, 
and  the  worst  of  it  is  she  doesn't  want  to  get 
out.  The  surface  sunlight  hurts  her  myopic 
blue  eyes.  There  is  hardly  a  more  dangerous 
character,  potentially  speaking,  in  the  levee 
district. 

But  what  about  the  family  and  school  neg- 
lect that  have  developed  such  a  character? 
Is  it  not  true,  as  this  girl  says,  that  the  remedy 


QUEER  FISH  IN  THE  DEPTHS     131 

for  such  evil  as  this  is  to  be  applied  in  the 
school  room? 

Doesn't  the  situation  call  for  general  teach- 
ing of  sex  hygiene  as  one  of  the  most  important 
elements  in  the  education  of  the  child? 

Is  it  not  true  that  without  determined  con- 
centration on  the  moral  improvement  of  the 
rising  generation  through  cooperation  of 
schools  and  churches  we  are  wrestling  ineffec- 
tively with  vice — trying  to  make  the  tail  wag 
the  dog? 

Sometimes  when  I  consider  the  task  I  have 
set  myself  in  telling  the  conditions  I  have  en- 
countered in  my  investigations  in  and  around 
Chicago  my  heart  almost  fails  me  and  my 
spirit  revolts.  Will  it  do  any  good?  I  ask 
myself. 

Will  the  men  and  women  who  are  fathers 
and  mothers  be  helped  to  realize  that  the  child 
must  be  trained  to  moral  standards  in  the 
home? 


i32     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

Will  the  churches  in  some  measure  be  con- 
vinced that  they  must  organize  for  a  com- 
bined effort  to  save  children  of  to-day — that 
souls  are  more  important  than  sectarianism, 
and  that  Sunday  is  not  the  only  day  in  the 
week? 

This  story  is  not  a  romance — it  is  a  tragedy 
of  truth. 

To  resume :  Let  us  see  how  far  the  law  is 
effective  in  preventing  operations  of  the  Sys- 
tem's recruiting  agents  in  this  search  for  girls 
to  carry  on  the  traffic  that  is  constantly  in 
progress. 

Some  time  ago  I  determined  to  pose  as  a 
vice  agent  myself,  and  a  very  brief  experience 
was  sufficient  to  convince  me  of  the  ease  with 
which  the  ranks  are  kept  filled  up. 

I  began  by  visiting  an  employment  agency 
engaged  in  furnishing  female  help.  The 
woman  in  charge  was  suspicious  and  reserved 
at  first.  I  told  her  I  wanted  "half  a  dozen 


QUEER  FISH  IN  THE  DEPTHS     133 

girls  for  out  of  town,"  and  that  they  had  to 
be  good  looking.  She  grinned  at  me  and 
asked  what  sort  of  work  I  wanted  them  for. 

"Oh,  kind  of  general,"  I  said. 

"About  how  old  girls?"  she  inquired. 

"Well,  young  enough  to  be  lively,"  I  re- 
plied, laughing. 

"Now  just  what  is  the  employment?"  she 
insisted.  "You  may  confide  in  me,  you  know." 

"The  fact  is,"  I  whispered,  "I  want  them 
for  entertainers — it's  a  high  class  house  in  a 
small  city,  about  a  hundred  miles  from  here." 

"It  is  against  the  law  for  us  to  furnish  girls 
that  way,"  the  woman  objected.  "The  penal- 
ties are  severe  and  we  have  to  be  careful." 

"I  don't  see  how  you'd  be  running  much 
risk,"  I  put  in,  "but  of  course  I  don't  want  any 
kickers." 

"I  think  I  can  get  what  you  want,"  said  the 
wily  agent,  finally.  "When  do  you  want 
them?" 


134     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

The  woman  named  her  price,  which  was 
heavy.  It  was  arranged  that  I  should  call 
next  morning  at  ten.  I  never  went  back. 

Now,  just  consider  that  experience.  I 
know  nothing  of  the  ways  of  professionals  in 
securing  girls  for  the  white  slave  trade,  but 
despite  my  utter  ignorance  I  was  able  in  a 
comparatively  brief  time  to  close  a  contract 
for  six  girls  to  be  sold  into  the  bondage  of 
shame. 

Nor  is  it  any  sufficient  answer  that  they  were 
to  be  women  already  employed  in  the  traffic. 
On  the  contrary,  this  woman  told  me  the  girls 
would  be  signed  up  for  hotel  work. 

"That's  what  we  send  them  out  as,"  she  said, 
"and  what  they  do  when  they  get  there  is  none 
of  our  business." 

Nor  was  this  my  last  experience  in  posing 
as  an  agent  of  the  vice  trust.  What  happened 
when  I  opened  negotiations  with  another 
agency  I'll  tell  later  on. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

TREFALKA  AND  STEVE 

I  MUST  tell  the  story  of  Tref  alka  Gralak,  who 
is  dead  now.  When  I  first  knew  her,  two 
years  ago,  she  was  a  dear,  soft-hearted  little 
thing  with  a  pretty  face  and  figure.  She 
loved  a  man  named  Steve  Bleczak. 

They  had  been  sweethearts,  these  two,  ever 
since  the  old  days  in  the  school,  and  they  were 
graduated  together  from  the  school  house  into 
the  factory. 

When  big,  muscular  Steve  used  to  show 
up  in  the  work  room  Trefalka's  blue  eyes 
shone  and  her  cheeks  flushed.  Then  she  used 
to  shake  the  heavy  dark  curls  down  round  her 
face  to  hide  her  confusion.  Oh,  yes,  Tref  alka 
was  very  much  in  love  with  Steve. 

135 


136    MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

One  night  after  her  work  was  over  Tref alka 
ran  into  my  house. 

"What  do  you  think  I  got?"  she  gasped  out. 

"Tell  me,"  I  smiled. 

"Look!"  laughed  Tref  alka. 

The  child  extended  her  hand  for  my  in- 
spection, and  upon  it  was  a  ring  set  with  the 
tiniest  diamond  I  ever  saw.  Trefalka's  eyes 
were  sparkling  and  she  breathed  rapidly  in 
her  excitement. 

"Ain't  it  class?"  babbled  the  child.  "Oh, 
ain't  it  a  Jim  Dandy — no,  ain't  it  a  Joe  Hun?" 
she  went  on.  "Dear,  me  an'  Steve's  going  to 
be  married.  His  pa's  goin'  to  give  us  a  lot, 
an'  he's  goin'  to  get  the  buildin'  loan  to  lend 
us  the  money  so  that  we  can  build  a  house.  It 
is  all  planned." 

I  never  saw  any  girl  so  happy  as  Trefalka. 
She  cried  one  minute  and  laughed  the  next, 
and  she  made  me  promise  that  I  would  be 
there  when  she  was  married,  because  I  had 


TREFALKA  AND  STEVE       137 

always  been  her  best  friend.  How  I  wish  I 
could  have  sustained  my  title  to  that  office ! 

"Trefalka,  dear,"  I  interposed,  "what  about 
your  wedding  dress?  It  will  be  something 
white,  of  course,  and  you  will  carry  flowers 
and  have  a  dance  afterward?" 

The  girl's  face  fell. 

"Pa's  drunk  again,"  she  whispered.  "There 
ain't  a  cent  in  the  bank.  My  money  from  the 
factory  goes  for  food.  Pa  always  makes  me 
give  him  all  my  money." 

"You  must  tell  him  you  are  to  be  married," 
I  urged,  "and  perhaps  he  will  let  you  save  for 
some  wedding  things." 

"No,"  she  said,  sadly,  "I  have  to  give  it  to 
him,  or  we  all  get  beat  up.  Anyway,  all  the 
girls  does  it  that  stays  home.  I  don't  care 
about  giving  them  the  money  if  I  could  just 
get  the  wedding  too.  (The  dress,  you  know, 
will  take  $15,  and  the  other  things  $10.  I 
think  I  could  get  everything  for  $30 — the 


138     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

things  to  eat  and  drink,  and  everything  like 
that." 

I  made  up  my  mind  that  Trefalka  should 
have  what  she  wanted  to  be  married  in,  poor 
child,  but  the  date  slipped  my  memory,  and  I 

shall  never  cease  to  regret  it 

•         •••••• 

"Steve  quit  his  job  in  the  factory,"  said  Tre- 
falka. "He  says  it  wasn't  very  genteel. 
Steve  is  awful  proud." 

"What  is  he  doing  now?"  I  asked. 

"In  one  of  them  skating  rinks  places  at 
South  Chicago,"  she  answered.  "Say,  the 
girls  are  swell — big  willow  plumes  and  such 
skirts  and  waists — all  silk.  He  likes  that, 
Steve  does.  And  I  haven't  got  nothing.  I 
shame  myself  with  Steve." 

Then  the  storm  broke.  Trefalka  buried 
her  curly  head  in  my  lap  and  cried  her  heart 
out.  The  little  body  shook  with  great  heavy 
sobs.  It  was  long  before  I  could  calm  her. 


TREFALKA  AND  STEVE       139 

"Don't  you  worry  about  Steve,"  I  said.  "If 
he  can  be  won  away  from  you  by  a  sleazy  silk 
skirt,  you  don't  want  him  anyhow." 

"But  I  do,"  she  raged.  "By  G— ,  you 
women  in  America  ain't  got  no  hearts  for 
men,"  she  stormed.  "I  want  Steve!" 

And  who  could  blame  the  child  for  wanting 
to  look  her  best  before  the  man  she  loved? 
Wasn't  it  human— wasn't  it  the  best  of  the 
woman  in  her? 

Poor  Trefalka!  Her  crying  ceased.  She 
wiped  her  eyes,  grasped  my  hand  tightly  and 
went  away  to  her  home.  Poor  little  girl — 
such  a  home! 

You  can't  wonder  at  anything  that  happens 
when  a  girl  with  a  hungry  heart  must  betake 
herself  to  filthy  quarters  filled  with  crying 
babies,  a  drunken  father  and  a  quarrelsome 
mother.  Rather  a  hard  place  to  turn  to  in 
an  extremity! 

Two  weeks  later  there  was  a  knock  at  the 


140    MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

door.  I  threw  it  open,  and  there,  under  the 
flickering  porch  light,  stood  Trefalka. 

"Trefalka,"  I  cried.     "Oh,  Trefalka." 

The  little  body,  swathed  in  a  cheap  satin 
gown,  swayed  forward.  I  put  my  arm  around 
the  girl  and  led  her  in.  She  was  painted  and 
her  eyebrows  were  grotesquely  penciled. 

"I  guess  you  know,"  she  began  just  about  a 
whisper. 

"Why  did  you?"  I  interposed. 

"Well,"  she  shivered,  "it's  down  to  what 
they  call  Joe  Howard's  joint.  It  was  Kitty 
out  to  the  factory  who  took  me  down.  She 
keeps  company  with  Dan,  the  bar  fly." 

"But  you  know  better  than  to  go  there,"  I 
answered  sternly.  "You  knew  what  sort  of 
place  it  was." 

"Well,  I  didn't  know  it  was  so  crazy  as 
that,"  the  girl  went  on.  "That  barkeep  is  the 
hoarse  guy  that  swiped  Kitty's  lockets — you 
know,  him  that  was  pinched  for  bringin'  girls 


(TREFALKA  AND  STEVE  141 
rom  Indiana  to  a  fake  weddin'.  I  told  Kitty 
about  Steve  and  says  I  couldn't  get  married 
because  I  didn't  have  no  weddin'  dress,  and 
Kitty  says:  'Falka,  why  don't  you  come  to 
Howard's  with  me,  because  you  can  make 
enough  in  a  week  to  get  the  dress  and  things. 
You  can  work  down  there  until  12  at  night, 
and  then  get  back  to  your  shack.' 

"So  I  asked  her  what  I  could  make  steady, 
and  she  says  it  could  be  $8  a  night  and  $15 
on  Saturdays.  She  tells  me  it  is  grand — all 
lace  curtains  and  a  nickel  planner  and  all  the 
things  you  want  to  drink.  'If  you  don't  be- 
lieve me,'  says  Kitty,  'come  and  see  for  your- 
self.'" 

•The  girl  paused.     I  asked  her  to  tell  me  all. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  SCARLET  WEDDING  DRESS 

"WELL,"  continued  Trefalka,  "that  night  I 
went  home  early  from  work  and  got  supper 
for  the  kids.  Pa  was  awful  mean  to  me.  I 
asked  him  if  he  could  do  something  for  my 

weddin'  and  he  says  'to with  weddin's. 

Take  the  vinegar  jug  and  chase  me  some 
booze/  and  that's  all  he  says  to  me. 

"Then  Ma  says  to  Pa  not  to  get  no  more 
booze,  and  Pa  says  to  her  to  shut  up,  because 
he's  going  to  do  the  talking  around  the  place, 
and  Ma  says  something  to  him,  so  he  tries  to 
hit  Ma  with  a  chair,  and  Ma  ducked  and  the 
chair  hit  the  door  and  come  back  on  Pa's  head. 
Then  Ma  cried  an'  was  on  her  knees  on  the 
floor. 


SCARLET  WEDDING  DRESS     143 

"  Talka,'  she  says,  'your  pa  has  gone  and 
died  on  us.' 

"I  took  a  look  at  Pa  and  he  was  all  bloody, 
but  I  didn't  care,  anyway.  'He  won't  die  for 
a  long  time,  anyhow,'  I  told  Ma,  and  then  I 
ran  out  and  met  Kitty.  I  was  cryin'  and  Kitty 
says,  'what  the  h —  is  the  use  of  bawling? 
Come  on  down  to  Joe's.' 

"So  that's  how  I  come  to  go." 

I  took  Trefalka  in  my  room  and  washed  the 
paint  off  her  face.  That  process  revealed  a 
very  pale  and  drawn-looking  child.  Kittie 
had  tried  to  bleach  her  hair  with  peroxide, 
but  I  was  glad  that  the  solution  had  been  too 
weak.  Tref alka's  hair  was  still  unspoiled. 

"I  got  the  money  for  the  dress,"  whispered 
the  girl  shivering,  "but  I'd  rather  work  in  the 
factory  for  $2  a  week.  That  Howard  joint  is 
some  fierce  place.  They  got  a  cash  register  just 
like  in  a  wine  room,  and  what  you  go  to  do  is  to 
get  the  fellows  tanked  so  they'll  spend  all  the 


,144     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

money  they  got  on  'em.  They  rings  it  all  up 
on  the  register  and  the  girls  get  a  percentage 
on  the  checks.  Some  o'  the  girls  thinks  it's 
fun,  but  it  ain't.  I  know  Carrie  that  works 
in  the  factory.  She  works  down  there,  too. 
Her  husband  lets  her  work  at  night,  and  he 
calls  for  her  at  12.  If  she  ain't  got  a  good  deal 
of  money  he  beats  her  up,  because  he  thinks 
she's  givin'  some  of  her  money  to  a  guy  or 
something  like  that. 

"Phil,  that  looks  after  rooms,  he  says  to  us 
girls  in  there:  'Get  the  rolls;  don't  forget 
it  is  pay  night.' 

"Say,  when  a  guy's  drunk  and  doped  you 
Hassen't  leave  a  nickel  in  his  pockets.  If  you 
Ho,  they're  down  on  you." 

"Trefalka,"  I  said.  "How  can  you  marry 
Steve  now?" 

"Steve  knows,"  she  snapped ;  "to with 

him.  He  wouldn't  believe  me  why  I  did  it. 
[To-night  he  found  me  out." 


SCARLET  WEDDING  DRESS     145 

There  was  an  awful  look  in  the  child's  face 
as  she  told  me  this.  She  seemed  to  have  just 
found  out  how  she  had  been  cheated.  I  saw 
that  her  eyes  were  swollen  and  heavy  with 
much  weeping. 

"I  don't  care,"  she  went  on,  and  then  the 
next  instant  wailed:  "Oh,  my  God!  Miss, 
yes,  I  do  care.  I  love  Steve  and  I  want  him. 
But  Steve  knows  now,  and  he's  quit.  I  was 
sittin'  in  the  back  room  there  with  four  girls 
an'  there  was  some  fellows  buying  beer. 
Helen  that  used  to  work  in  the  factory  was 
there,  an'  I  noticed  her  sniffin'  flakes.  Then 
two  more  fellows  came  in,  and  they  looked  in 
our  room.  I  stood  up  with  my  hands  and  feet 
froze  and  shiverin'  all  over. 

"'Steve!'  I  says.  Wait,  Steve.  I'll  tell 
you  all  about  it.' 

"  'You,'  Steve  says,  an'd  then  he  laughed. 

'You '  Steve  says  to  me,  and  I  tried 

to  get  hold  of  him  to  make  him  talk  to  me,  but 


146     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

it  wasn't  no  good.  He  hit  me  right  here,  an' 
I  fell  down." 

Trefalka  pushed  down  the  shoulder  of  her 
near-silk  waist  and  showed  me  a  livid  bruise 
on  her  white  flesh. 

"I  come  to  quick,  but  when  I  did  Steve  was 
gone,  and  he  won't  never  come  back — he  won't 
never  come  back,"  moaned  the  little  girl.  She 
was  rocking  backward  and  forward  in  an 
agony  of  distress. 

"Trefalka,"  I  said,  "you  must  find  Steve  and 
let  me  talk  to  him.  I  believe  I  can  make  him 
take  care  of  you.  He  did  love  you,  didn't 
he?" 

"Oh,"  moaned  Trefalka,  "I  know  he  won't 
come  back.  I  just  begged  him.  'Steve,'  I 
said,  'Steve,  for  God's  sake  don't  throw  me 
down,  Steve.'  When  he  took  his  ring  ofFn 
me  I  just  hung  to  him  and  told  him  I'd  work 
all  my  life,  if  Ke'd  just  let  me  show  him  I  was 
white  and  not  to  take  the  ring,  but  he  wouldn't 


SCARLET  WEDDING  DRESS     147 

have  no  truck  with  me — he  just  wouldn't  have 
no  truck  with  me. 

"And  I  just  did  it  to  get  a  weddin'  dress  so 
I  wouldn't  shame  him — he  was  so  proud." 

If  any  of  the  women  I  know  who  are  stern 
judges  of  other  people's  morals  could  have 
sat  with  me  and  watched  that  helpless  lost 
sister,  her  hands  stretched  out  empty  toward 
me,  tears  streaming  down  her  face,  I  am  sure 
they  would  have  wept  too. 

"Trefalka,  to-morrow  we'll  go  and  find 
Steve,"  I  said.  "I'll  help  you." 

"Please,"  she  assented.  "I'll  come  to- 
morrow." And  she  was  gone. 

The  door  closed  after  her,  but  I  looked  out 
quickly.  She  was  not  going  in  the  direction 
of  her  home.  In  an  instant  I  had  a  cape 
thrown  over  my  shoulders  and  was  following 
her.  I  knew  where  she  was  going  now. 
Steve  was  in  South  Chicago.  She  was  going 
there.  Trefalka  sat  in  the  front  part  of  the 


148     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

street  car  with  her  head  bowed  down.  She 
did  not  see  me.  At  last  we  reached  the  skating 
rink. 

As  I  reached  the  corner  I  waited  an  instant. 
The  skaters  were  pouring  out  of  the  door. 
The  calliope  that  had  been  screeching  out  a 
discordant  refrain  was  still.  The  last  couple 
turned  past  the  corner.  I  could  see  Steve's 
big  frame  outlined  against  the  flapping  shade 
as  he  reached  to  put  out  the  lights  one  after 
another. 

I  stepped  forward  to  plead  with  him  that 
he  forgive  her  the  sin  of  which  he  himself  was 
guilty — to  tell  him  that  Tref  alka  didn't  under- 
stand, and  that  it  was  really  for  him.  That 
instant  Tref  alka  darted  past  me,  breathless,  her 
eyes  glittering  fiercely.  She  was  past  the  door 
and  by  his  side  just  as  he  reached  for  the  last 
light. 

"Steve,"  she  cried,  tensely — "Steve,  dear — 


SCARLET  WEDDING  DRESS     149 

are  you  goin'  to  do  what  you  said?  Are  you 
goin'  to  throw  me  down?"  she  cried. 

"Didn't  I  tell  you  to  git  out,  you ? 

Do  you  think  any  fellow  wants  to  marry  your 
kind?"  His  face  hardened  and  an  ugly  scowl 
lay  upon  it. 

"Steve,  don't  you  see,  it  was  the  weddin' 
dress,  the  money?  Them  girls  did  it,  Kitty 
and  Helen — they  say  it's  all  right."  She  fell 
on  her  knees  before  him.  Her  arms  embraced 
him. 

"Let  me  alone,"  he  said.  "I'm  done."  He 
shoved  her  off  roughly. 

Trefalka  sprang  to  her  feet.  There  was  a 
gleam  in  the  air,  a  cry  of  pain.  Steve's  bulky 
frame  sank  to  the  floor. 

Before  I  could  cry  out  Trefalka  had  thrown 
herself  full  length  upon  his  body.  Her  mouth 
found  his.  Then  the  knife  was  in  her  heart 
too. 


150     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

I  cried  for  help.  An  officer  made  his  way 
through  the  gathering  crowd.  The  lights 
flared  up.  There  they  lay,  Steve  and  Tre- 
f alka — dying.  His  arm  had  found  her  waist 
and  held  her  close. 


CHAPTER  XV 

ANNIE'S  HUSBAND 

Now,  Hear  reader,  you  are  liable  to  exclaim 
with  annoyance  that  this  is  not  a  story,  but  a 
series  of  stories.  To  this  I  wish  to  reply  that 
this  is  a  story — my  own  story  of  my  own  ex- 
periences in  the  by-ways  of  the  underworld. 

Here  is  the  case  of  Annie  Cracrow.  I  had 
been  requested  to  find  out  at  first  hand  what 
became  of  3,500  fatherless  babies  born  in  Chi- 
cago every  year.  Annie  Cracrow  afforded  at 
least  one  illustration. 

I  worked  with  Annie  in  a  sweatshop,  a 
tailoring  plant  on  the  west  side.  Side  by  side 
we  sewed  on  seams  and  tapes,  finishing  gar- 
ment after  garment.  It  was  a  monotonous  and 
soul-stifling  employment — always  the  same 

151 


152     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

thing.  There  was  no  variety  at  all,  no  in- 
dividuality possible  in  the  work,  no  avenue  for 
inspiration.  It  was  so  much  the  garment,  so 
much  to  be  done — day's  beginning  to  day's 
end. 

One  night — a  dull  rainy  night — we  streamed 
out  of  the  factory  with  a  thousand  or  more 
girls  working  just  as  we  were.  Most  of  the 
workers  were  big,  angular,  foreign-born  girls, 
who  had  been  mal-adjusted  to  the  confinement 
and  dust  of  shops. 

The  continual  bending  over  garments  by 
clay,  the  same  work  at  home  during  most  even- 
ings, had  begun  to  tell  on  many  once  strong 
constitutions.  Some  had  deep  hollows  under 
their  cheek-bones ;  others  coughed  continually 
and  complained  of  pains  in  the  chest  and  back. 

Annie  Cracrow's  face  was  flushed  as  we  left 
the  workroom.  She  had  the  cough,  too.  I 
had  taken  her  to  a  doctor,  who  said  she  ought 
to  be  sent  to  a  dry  climate.  Poor  girl — she 


ANNIE'S  HUSBAND  153 

hadn't  the  money  to  go  anywhere.  Besides, 
there  were  other  considerations. 

We  were  headed  for  the  Polish  settlement 
after  work.  Annie  had  to  stop  in  a  doorway 
because  she  was  overcome  with  a  paroxysm  of 
coughing.  Two  girls  from  the  factory  joined 
us  and  we  walked  on  together. 

"The  band  was  out  yesterday — did  you  hear 
it?"  asked  one  of  the  girls. 

"Sure  I  did,"  smiled  Annie — "yer  pa  was 
in  it,  carrying  the  statue  of  Joseph.  I  seen 
him  too." 

"It  was  a  pretty  good  parade,"  went  on  the 
other  girl,  "but  my  ma  says  they  used  to  have 
better  ones  in  the  old  country  and  the  streets 
wasn't  so  dirty." 

"How's  your  brother  Stan,  Annie?"  in- 
quired one  of  the  girls.  "Is  he  still  doin'  time 
down  to  the  Bridewell  prison?" 

"Yes,"  nodded  Annie,  "but  he's  goin'  to  be 
home  pretty  soon,  and  Butch,  too." 


154     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

"She's  that  crazy  about  Butch,"  confided 
another  girl  to  me  in  a  whisper —  "Why, 
say,  she'd  lie  down  and  let  him  walk  over  her. 
Say,  I  wouldn't  let  no  feller  get  me  goin'  that 
way." 

Annie  looked  around  at  me  and  smiled. 

"Do  you  love  a  feller?"  she  asked. 

I  did  not  reply,  so  she  went  on: 

"Sometimes  Butch  was  awful  mean  to  me, 
but  if  I  just  could  have  him  where  I  could 
work  for  him— I  mean  in  some  little  house— 
I'd  make  him  love  me.  You  can't  make  no 
man  love  you  right  unless  you  can  fix  his 
breakfast,"  she  philosophized.  "Butch  is 
great  on  breakfasts,  and  where  he  boards  they 
ain't  clean." 

"Annie,  when  are  you  going  to  see  your 
brother  in  the  Bridewell?"  I  asked. 

"To-morrow,"  she  said.     "I  wish  you  would 


come." 


"I'll  go,"  I  said,  and  was  rewarded  with  the 


ANNIE'S  HUSBAND  155 

story  of  Stanislaus  Cracrow's  arrest  and  con- 
viction, together  with  a  notorious  rascal  known 
to  the  police  as  "Butch"  Krapadinski.  There 
had  been  a  revolver  battle  before  the  men  were 
captured,  and  Stanislaus  had  been  wounded. 
The  men  were  about  to  complete  their  sen- 
tences. 

So  the  next  morning  Annie  and  I  went  to 
visit  them.  Annie  was  dressed  in  her  plain 
best.  Her  hair  was  plastered  down  straight 
on  her  forehead  with  fastidious  fashion.  She 
wore  a  straw  hat  with  a  big,  red  rose. 

The  poor  child  was  beamingly  happy.  She 
was  going  to  see  "Butch."  When  the  guard 
let  us  into  the  cellroom  she  was  trembling.  I 
have  read  learned  disquisitions  which  essayed 
to  prove  that  such  human  creatures  as  Annie 
Cracrow  are  unable  to  experience  the  finer 
emotions.  Some  sociological  pundits  ought 
to  travel  with  me  for  a  month  or  two. 

The  cell  number  was  123.     I  saw  a  man  sit- 


156    MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

ting  in  the  far  corner  of  the  dark  little  coop. 
He  came  forward  and  stood  with  his  hands 
clutching  the  bars.  The  man  was  Stanis- 
laus. 

"Hello,  Kid,"  he  cried.  "We  ain't  got  no 
more  shop  work  in  here — we're  coming  out  to- 
morrow, me  and  Butch." 

The  big,  broad  shouldered  fellow  smiled  as 
he  patted  his  sister's  hand.  His  face  lighted 
up  and  he  seemed  more  human  than  when  it 
was  in  repose. 

"Butch  comin'  out  too,  Stan?"  asked  Annie. 
"Are  you  sure  they'll  let  him  out?" 

"Sure,  he's  got  his  'stop-work'  card.  Say, 
Annie,  Butch  is  still  stuck  on  you — he  tipped  it 
off  to  me  on  the  dinner  march  two  or  three 
times." 

Annie's  face  was  glorified.  For  all  her 
plainness  she  looked  positively  happy.  She 
was  nervously  twisting  a  bit  of  ribbon  on  the 
front  of  her  gown. 


ANNIE'S  HUSBAND  157 

"I'm  goin'  down  to  see  Butch,"  she  said  to 
me.  "Want  to  come?" 

So  we  made  our  way  to  cell  153.  There 
stood  "Butch."  He  was  hideous — a  thin, 
yellow-skinned  misfit  of  society.  The  low, 
slanting  brow,  heavy  jaw  and  shifting  eyes 
with  one  drooping  lid  told  me  more  in  a  glance 
than  Annie  could  have  told  me  in  a  month. 

"So  you're  Annie's  sweetheart?"  I  ventured. 

"Sure,"  he  leered,  staring  at  me  sullenly. 

"Then  you're  a  lucky  fellow,  and  I  hope  you 
know  that,"  I  told  him,  stepping  aside  to  let 
them  converse  privately.  But  I  couldn't  help 
overhearing. 

"Butch,  dear,"  she  said,  "you're  coming 
home  to-morrow.  Will  you  come  out  to  the 
place  with  Stan?" 

"Sure,"  was  the  reply.  "Sure,  I'm  comin' 
out  there." 

Annie  was  seized  with  a  fit  of  coughing  and 
I  stepped  forward  to  help  her. 


158     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

"Listens  like  the  con,"  remarked  the  man  be- 
hind the  bars  with  utter  indifference. 

"It's  just  a  bad  cough,"  I  declared.  "What 
she  needs  is  a  rest  and  a  better  home." 

Annie  recovered  and  resumed  the  conversa- 
tion. What  she  said  gave  me  the  first  insight 
into  her  truly  desperate  plight. 

"Butch,"  she  gasped,  "Butch,  you  must 
come.  The  priest  says  he'll  make  the  call. 
You  know  it  ain't  goin'  to  be  long,  Butch." 

"Aw,  sure,"  was  the  response.  "Sure,  I'm 
comin',  Kid.  I  said  I  would,  didn't  I?" 

The  remainder  of  the  conversation  carried 
on  by  poor  Annie  with  the  utmost  frankness 
and  with  no  evident  anxiety  on  the  part  of  the 
man,  left  nothing  to  be  imagined  as  far  as  I 
was  concerned.  After  we  had  once  more 
visited  the  brother  and  were  again  out  in  the 
sunshine,  I  begged  Annie  to  let  me  help 
her. 

"Will  he  marry  you?"  I  asked. 


ANNIE'S  HUSBAND  159 

"If  he  don't  Father  will  kill  me,"  she  re- 
plied. 

"What  about  Butch — won't  he  be  shot,  too?" 

"Why,  no,"  she  said,  in  surprise,  "they 
always  figure  it's  the  girl,  not  the  man.  Pa 
wouldn't  do  nothin'  to  him." 

"Do  you  love  this  man?"  I  persisted. 

"Sure,"  answered  Annie,  surprisedly.  "I'm 
goin'  to  be  the  mother  of  his  child — that's  why 
I  want  him  to  be  sure  and  come  home.  I 
wouldn't  tell  nobody  but  you,  only  you've  been 
so  kind  to  me.  I'm  afraid  if  Butch  don't  come 
home  soon  everybody'll  know." 

The  next  day  ended  my  experience  in  that 
particular  sweat  shop.  I  was  engaged  in  an- 
other part  of  the  State  running  down  some 
clews  with  the  hope  of  getting  trace  of  little 
Mary  Holden,  and  some  time  passed  before 
my  return.  Annie  had  promised  that  if 
Butch  did  not  keep  his  promise  to  her  she 
would  let  me  know. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

MARY  HOLDEN! 

A  FEW  days  after  I  returned  to  Chicago  I 
heard  a  step  on  my  porch  soon  after  dusk. 
Someone  rang  the  bell.  When  I  answered, 
Annie's  sister,  Victoria,  was  standing  there. 
She  was  breathless. 

"  Please  be  so  kind  to  go  see  Annie,"  she 
pleaded.  "Pa  chased  her  out  and  he  says  he's 
goin'  to  kill  her,  only  he  ain't  got  no  gun — the 
saloonkeeper's  got  it." 

I  found  Annie  at  an  address  in  Dearborn 
Street.  She  was  the  mother  of  a  boy  baby. 
The  poor  child-mother  was  in  desperate 
straits.  Her  chest  was  shrunken  and  the  flesh 
was  drawn  tightly  over  her  bones.  The  girl's 
eyes  were  still  bright.  She  smiled  at  me  as  I 

entered. 

1 60 


MARY  HOLDEN!  161 

"Why  did  you  not  send  for  me?"  I  scolded. 
"You  had  my  address  all  the  time." 

"I  said  I  would,"  she  began,  "but  Pa  threw 
me  out.  He  would  have  shot  me,  only  he 
loaned  the  saloonkeeper  the  gun  for  drinks. 
My  baby  came  down  by  the  Salvation  Home." 

She  pulled  back  the  dirty  coverlet  on  her 
little  bed  to  let  me  see  the  baby's  face.  The 
child  cried  and  she  patted  it  tenderly  with  her 
thin  hand. 

"Where  is  Butch?"  I  demanded.  "Didn't 
he  marry  you?" 

"No,"  she  confessed,  her  eyes  filling  with 
tears.  "He  didn't  come  back,  but  he  will 
some  time,  'cause  the  baby  looks  just  like  him 
and  somebody's  goin'  to  tell  him." 

"Doesn't  he  send  you  any  money?"  I  per- 
sisted. 

"Not  yet." 

"Well,  he  is  going  to  take  care  of  that  baby 
and  you  too,"  I  declared. 


162     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

She  was  quick  to  defend  her  man. 

"Maybe  Butch  ain't  had  no  work,"  she  said. 

An  hour  later  I  visited  the  Court  of  Do- 
mestic Relations.  A  warrant  was  issued  for 
Butch.  He  was  found  and  brought  before 
the  court.  He  tried  to  lie  out  of  Annie's 
charges. 

"You  marry  her  and  take  care  of  your  child, 
or  I'll  send  you  to  the  penitentiary  for  a  life 
term,"  I  whispered. 

He  stared  at  me  aghast.  He  rolled  his  eyes 
and  his  jaw  dropped. 

"Why?"  he  gasped. 

"You  know,"  I  snapped.  "You  know,  don't 
you?" 

It  was  a  random  shot  but  it  told.  Butch 
knew  why  he  ought  to  go  to  the  penitentiary 
for  life  even  if  I  did  not.  My  threat  had 
stirred  a  horrible  fear  in  his  shriveled  soul. 
The  rascal  thought  I  had  found  out  all  about 
him.  He  was  a  quaking  picture  of  terror. 


MARY  HOLDEN!  163 

"Marry  her,"  I  demanded,  "now." 
"Quick,"  he  assented.     "Get  the  priest." 
So  I  went  to  poor  little  Annie's  wedding 
and  saw  that  she  had  a  few  bits  of  finery  to 
wear.     The  man  she  married  is  a  scoundrel 
of  the  coarser  type,  but  fear  is  keeping  him 
straight. 

"Butch,"  I  said  after  he  was  married,  "if 
ever  I  see  a  bruise  on  Annie — if  ever  I  find  out 
that  you  are  not  good  to  her  or  the  baby — if 
you  don't  get  work  and  keep  it  and  support 
your  little  family,  do  you  know  what  I  am 
going  to  do? 

"Well,"  I  said  quietly,  "it  will  be  fifteen 
years  at  least — and  perhaps — " 

I  made  a  suggestive  motion  with  my  hand 
toward  my  throat.  The  man  shuddered.  I 
don't  know  all  he  has  done  in  the  past,  but  I 
do  know  what  he  is  doing  now.  He  is  taking 
care  of  Annie  and  the  baby  and  he  is  working 
steadily. 


164     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

One  evening  after  I  had  left  Annie  I  was 
walking  up  South  State  Street  when  I  noticed 
a  familiar  figure  just  a  few  paces  ahead  of  me. 
I  stepped  into  a  dark  areaway  and  watched. 
The  figure  turned,  almost  facing  me.  It  was 
Mary  Holden. 

I  was  just  about  to  rush  out  and  speak  to 
her  when  I  saw  her  nod  to  a  passing  man. 
The  man  took  her  arm  and  the  couple  disap- 
peared into  a  tumble-down  frame  building. 
The  door  closed  behind  them,  and  I  heard  the 
lock  click.  I  knocked  frantically  at  the  door, 
but  received  no  response. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

I  HUNT  A  JOB  ON  THE  STAGE 

I  RAN  to  the  corner  where  I  found  a  kind- 
faced  policeman.  I  told  him  I  was  searching 
for  a  girl.  He  promised  to  help  me.  I 
pointed  to  the  building  where  I  had  seen  Mary 
enter,  and  together  we  walked  back  to  the 
locked  door.  It  took  only  a  few  minutes  for 
the  strong  shoulders  of  the  officer  to  break 
down  the  door.  Together  we  ascended  the 
stairs.  In  the  rooms  I  heard  a  scurrying  of 
feet.  At  the  top  of  the  staircase  a  florid-faced 
man  approached  us. 

"What's  the  matter?"  he  asked. 

"We  are  looking  for  a  girl,  and  we  intend 
to  search  the  place,"  retorted  the  policeman. 
"We  know  the  girl  is  here.  We  just  saw  her 


come  in." 


165 


166     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

"There  must  be  some  mistake,"  said  the 
man.  He  shrugged  his  shoulders  as  the  stal- 
wart officer  of  the  law  led  the  way  into  one  of 
the  rooms.  For  fully  an  hour  we  searched, 
but  no  sign  of  Mary.  Finally  the  officer 
turned  to  me. 

"See  that?"  he  asserted,  as  he  pointed  to  a 
narrow  passageway.  "That  leads  to  the  alley, 
and  through  it  your  friend  left  this  house." 

I  walked  back  to  the  corner  with  my  kind 
aide.  He  promised  to  have  the  tumbledown 
shack  watched  and  to  help  find  pretty  Mary 
Holden. 

"That  place  is  filled  with  theatrical  people," 
said  the  policeman  just  as  I  bade  him  good 
night.  "Maybe  a  theatrical  bureau  can  give 
you  some  information  that  might  be  valuable. 
A  lot  of  girls  hang  around  them  trying  to  get 
on  the  stage."  Then  he  shook  my  hand  and 
wished  me  success. 

I  don't  think  I  shall  ever  forget  my  adven- 


I  HUNT  A  JOB  167 

'ture  in  the  role  of  a  stage-struck  girl  seeking 
an  engagement. 

It  seemed  for  about  two  weeks,  while  the 
trail  was  fresh,  that  nearly  every  prominent 
manager  in  the  country  wanted  to  engage  me 
as  a  leading  woman — at  least  that  was  the  im- 
pression I  gathered  from  the  anxiety  of  the 
agents  I  visited  to  secure  my  services. 

When  I  started  out  on  this  angle  of  my 
investigation  I  wore  a  natty  short-skirted  blue 
serge  suit,  a  pair  of  satin  pumps  and  a  jaunty 
turban.  I  let  my  hair  hang  down  my  back  in 
a  queue  so  as  to  enhance  the  impression  of 
extreme  youth,  and  in  my  hand  I  carried  a 
silver  chain  reticule. 

In  the  first  theatrical  bureau  I  visited  I  met 
a  young  man  who  was  seated  at  a  desk  talking 
to  a  girl  who  had  preceded  me.  When  he  saw 
me  he  hurried  the  business  through  and  nodded 
with  an  ingratiating  smile  indicating  that  I 
might  approach. 


i68     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

I  told  the  man  I  was  from  Montauk,  Illi- 
nois, and  that  I  wished  to  go  on  the  stage.  He 
glanced  me  over  from  head  to  foot  in  an  ap- 
praising sort  of  fashion,  and  then  grinned. 

"What  line?"  he  inquired,  tapping  the  desk 
with  his  pencil. 

"Vaudeville  or  light  opera,"  I  replied. 
"I'd  like  a  part  if  I  can  get  it;  I  don't  want  to 
go  into  the  chorus." 

"Any  experience?"  asked  the  young  man  in 
dulcet  tones. 

"Some,"  I  answered.  "I  can  dance  well, 
and  I  know  music  too." 

"Well,"  he  reflected,  "I  have  several  places 
open  in  outside  vaudeville  houses.  Of  course, 
a  girl's  got  to  be  wise  to  get  along  in  the  busi- 
ness nowadays." 

"You  mean  well  educated?"  I  asked. 

"Oh,  wised  up,  you  know — not  too  high- 
toned  to  get  along  with  her  friends,"  he  said. 

"Do  you  think  I  can  make  good?"  I  coaxed. 


I  HUNT  A  JOB  169 

"That" — and  he  favored  me  with  another 
X-ray  inventory — "that  depends  on  your 
ankles,  etc.,  my  dear." 

I  thought  this  young  man  was  sufficiently 
friendly  and  so  decided  to  go  away,  leaving  my 
'phone  number,  because  he  said  he  would  call 
me  up  as  soon  as  he  found  the  job  I  wanted, 
which,  he  said,  might  be  any  minute. 

As  I  left  the  office  he  called  out  to  me  that 
I  must  be  ready  for  a  tryout  at  any  time  of  the 
day  or  night,  because  theatrical  managers  had 
to  provide  for  emergencies,  and  people  want- 
ing good  engagements  had  to  be  prepared  to 
submit  to  trifling  inconveniences. 

Outside  in  the  hallway  I  paused  to  get  my 
breath.  In  all  my  life  I  had  never  encoun- 
tered anyone  so  frankly  analytical  of  my  per- 
sonal endowments  and  attractions  as  Mr. 
Blank  had  proved. 

While  I  was  standing  there  I  heard  the  door 
open  between  Mr.  Blank's  room  and  the  next 


ii7o     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

office,  where  a  man  that  writes  songs  holds 
forth.  The  conversation  was  so  loud  that  I 
couldn't  help  hearing  it. 

"A  peach!"  cried  Mr.  Blank.  I  knew  his 
voice. 

"Some  class!"  replied  the  other  man.  I 
never  saw  him. 

Of  course  they  meant  me,  but  since  I  had 
purposely  caparisoned  myself  like  a  gay  lily 
to  get  that  theatrical  job,  and  was  ashamed  to 
go  on  the  street  because  of  my  short  skirt,  the 
opinions  of  Blank  and  company  did  not  turn 
my  head.  I  crept  quietly  down  the  stairway 
instead  of  waiting  for  the  elevator. 

Somehow  I  had  no  taste  for  further  explora- 
tion that  day.  I  went  home.  Mother  gave 
me  a  head  massage  and  I  had  partially  re- 
gained my  poise  by  dinner  time.  We  had 
guests  for  dinner  and  they  stayed  rather  late. 
It  was  nearly  twelve  when  they  left.  A  few 


I  HUNT  A  JOB  171 

minutes  after  the  telephone  rang.  I  answered 
the  bell.  Mr.  Blank  was  talking. 

"Hello!"  he  called.  "Is  this  Miss  Mon- 
tigny?" 

"Yes,"  I  answered  as  softly  as  possible. 
"This  is  Cecile — who  is  speaking,  please?" 

"Say,"  trilled  the  other  end,  "this  is  Blank, 
d'you  get  me?" 

"You're  the  theatrical  gentleman,"  I  whis- 
pered. 

"Right-0,  Kid,"  he  laughed.  "Say,  I've 
hooked  a  swell  job  for  you  in  stock.  It's  a 
road  playing  rep.  I've  got  to  come  over  and 
talk  it  with  you." 

"But  I  live  away  over  on  the  north  side,"  I 
cooed.  "It's  past  midnight  and  I  couldn't 
think  of  asking  you  to  call  at  this  time  of 
night." 

"Oh,  that's  all  right,"  he  rattled  on,  "it  won't 
take  me  many  minutes.  SVhat's  the  address?" 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  MIDNIGHT  CONVERSATION 

THE  nerve  of  Mr.  Blank! 

When  he  demanded  to  see  me  I  told  him 
politely  that  I  lived  in  a  boarding  house,  and 
that  if  I  asked  anyone  to  my  room  at  this  time 
of  night  someone  would  be  sure  to  criticise 
me. 

"What  you  want  to  do  is  to  get  a  job  before 
you  get  worried  about  the  critics,"  he 
chuckled.  "I've  got  the  swellest  job  in  the 
business  waiting  on  the  stocks  for  you,  but 
we've  got  to  close  it  to-night." 

What  he  said  about  the  critics  nonplussed 
me  for  an  instant.  Mr.  Blank  was  a  logician. 

"The  best  I  can  do  is  to  come  down  in  the 
morning  and  talk  it  over  with  you,"  I 

pleaded— "will  not  that  do?" 

172 


MIDNIGHT  CONVERSATION     173 

"Oh,  well,  all  right,"  he  snapped,  and  I 
heard  him  hang  up  the  receiver. 

I  was  fixing  my  hair  for  the  night  when  the 
telephone  rang  again.  I  answered  it. 

"Hello!"  said  a  thick  voice.  "This  is 
Blank." 

"Why,  Mr.  Blank,"  I  interrupted,  indig- 
nantly, "do  you  know  what  time  it  is?  It  is 
nearly  one  o'clock." 

"Time?"  he  gurgled.  "What's  time  to  do 
with  us?  Time  was  made  for  slaves." 

"White  slaves!"  I  let  slip,  inadvertently. 

"What?"  growled  the  man. 

"Oh,"  I  said,  "I've  got  to  go  to  bed." 

"Wait  a  minute,"  urged  Mr.  Blank.  "Say, 
Kid,  get  on  your  glad  rags  and  come  on  out — 
make  a  sneak  for  it.  I'm  waiting  down  on  the 


corner." 


"Why — there  is  no  place  we  can  talk  this 
time  of  night,"  I  remonstrated.  "Why  can't 
you  wait  until  morning?" 


174    MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

"I'll  tell  you  when  I  see  you,"  he  insisted. 
"Come  on  down — make  a  quick  change." 

"Mr.  Blank,"  I  laughed. 

"Yes,  sweetheart,"  drooled  Mr.  Blank. 

"Good  night!" 

" "  snarled  the  thick  voice  as  I  cut  off 

the  connection. 

A  few  minutes  later  the  'phone  began  ring- 
ing again,  so  I  pulled  out  the  plugs  of  the  re- 
ceiver and  put  the  useful  little  instrument  out 
of  use  for  that  night.  Also  I  slept  the  sleep  of 
the  just. 

Now  that  is  one  side  of  the  screen.  Any 
girl  with  slight  experience  and  some  personal 
attractiveness  is  certain  to  be  treated  just  as  I 
was  when  she  tries  to  get  on  the  theatrical 
boards  through  her  own  personal  unaided  en- 
deavor. 

Let  us  see  some  of  the  other  angles  of  this 
everlasting  girl  hunt  as  it  is  conducted  in  the 


MIDNIGHT  CONVERSATION     175 

modern  city  of  Chicago — the  city  wherein 
"vice  has  been  abolished." 

I  decided  to  go  about  the  employment 
agencies.  You  will  recall  that  I  told  you  of 
one  little  experience  I  had  with  them  in  a 
previous  chapter. 

Dressing  myself  in  a  flashy  suit,  topped  off 
with  a  hat  that  resembled  an  ostrich  farm,  also 
wearing  a  wig  to  conceal  my  own  dark  hair, 
I  believe  I  succeeded  in  losing  whatever  ex- 
ternal evidences  of  respectability  I  ever  pos- 
sessed. 

First  I  called  up  four  or  five  employment 
agencies,  and  in  each  case  something  like  this 
conversation  followed : 

"Hello!    This  is  Miss  Montigny." 

Generally  there  was  a  man  on  the  other  end 
of  the  line. 

"Yes — what  can  we  do  for  you?" 

"I  am  looking  for  some  girls  to  work  in  a 


176     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

hotel  over  a  saloon.  You  know  what  I  mean, 
dearie  ?" 

I  found  the  "dearie"  invariably  effective 
when  talking  to  a  man. 

"Yes,  I  know,  but  it's  against  the  law  for  us 
to  furnish  them,  and  we  don't  dare  do  business 
over  the  'phone." 

"Well,  never  mind,"  I  admonished.  "Look 
'em  up,  and  I'll  come  down." 

With  another  agency  on  the  line  I  had  better 
luck.  The  man  agreed  to  get  the  girls  and 
have  them  ready  for  me  to  look  over  right 
away,  but  he  would  not  make  a  deal  as  to  price 
over  the  telephone. 

"Say!"  he  shouted,  as  I  was  about  to  hang 
up,  "do  you  want  squabs  or  broads?" 

"Oh,  little  ones,"  I  giggled.  "Don't  want 
any  old  ladies,  you  know — I  ain't  running  a 
home  for  the  aged." 

That  callous  bit  of  repartee  seemed  to  make 
me  very  popular  with  the  man  on  the  'phone. 


MIDNIGHT  CONVERSATION     177 

He  promised  that  he  would  send  me  a  "bunch" 
of  new  ones. 

I  boarded  a  street  car  and  was  soon  in  the 
office  of  this  accommodating  personage.  He 
was  a  short,  thick-set  man  with  shiny,  strong 
teeth.  His  eyes  were  long  and  narrow.  He 
may  have  been  a  foreigner,  but  he  spoke  good 
English.  His  hair  was  jet  black  and  he  wore 
diamonds  on  two  fingers. 

"I'm  Miss  Montigriy,"  I  told  him. 

"You  called  about  some  furniture?"  he  in- 
quired. 

"Yes,"  I  said.    "What  luck  have  you  had  ?" 

"Well,"  he  croaked,  "we've  got  plenty  of 
second  hand  stuff  all  the  time,  but  when  you 
want  it  right  out  of  the  factory,  it's  not  so  easy 
all  the  time.  What  kind  of  a  place  did  you 
say  it  was?" 

"Hotel  and  saloon,"  I  smiled.  "There'll  be 
a  bit  in  it  for  you." 

"There  are  three  or  four  squabs  'down  near 


,178     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

where  I  stay  now,"  he  put  in.  "They're  look- 
ing for  a  chance,  I  know.  Of  course,  I  can't 
go  to  'em  direct,  but  I'll  find  out  about  'em  be- 
fore night.  What  do  I  get?" 

I  named  a  sum  that  I  thought  would  attract 
him.  It  did.  His  eyes  became  narrower  and 
longer  than  ever,  and  his  lips  moved  as  if  he 
were  eating  candy.  He  was  sensing  the 
money. 

Within  four  hours  I  was  promised  eight 
young  girls  to  come  to  that  visionary  saloon 
and  hotel  of  mine,  avowedly  for  evil  purposes. 
Out  of  the  fifteen  agencies  I  talked  to  only 
three  appeared  to  have  no  system  of  providing 
for  the  emergency  they  thought  I  wanted 
filled. 

And  yet  there  is  supposed  to  be  a  rigid 
supervision  of  such  places.  What  sort  of  in- 
spection do  you  suppose  can  be  in  effect  when 
a  system  such  as  I  describe  is  permitted  to 
exist? 


CHAPTER  XIX 

GRAY  WOLF  AND  LOVE  PIRATE 

BEWARE  of  the  Gray  Wolf. 

Gray  Wolf  is  a  wary  creature  that  prowls  at 
night,  but  is  not  above  locating  his  prey  in 
ithe  daytime.  It  is  the  most  dangerous  denizen 
of  the  undergrowth  that  bewilders  little  girls 
adrift. 

Gray  Wolf  often  is  a  very  respectable-look- 
ing prowler.  He  looks  as  though  it  might  be 
safe  to  ask  him  the  way  home,  but  to  repose 
much  confidence  in  him  often  is  a  fatal  error, 
for  the  Gray  Wolf  is  a  predatory  animal,  keen 
of  scent,  resourceful. 

Sometimes  you  may  have  seen  gray  wolves 
with  only  a  little  gray  above  their  ears — the 
rest  of  them  sleek  and  shiny,  black  or  brown. 
But  do  not  be  deceived!  Always  look  for  the 

179 


i8o     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

gray  patches  above  the  ears.  It  is  a  sign  to 
betray  and  warn. 

Also  beware  of  the  Love  Pirate.  She  is  a 
dangerous  character.  She  often  is  brilliantly 
plumaged,  furred  and  feathered.  Again,  she 
may  be  demurely  but  expensively  garmented. 
She  preys  upon  Gray  Wolf  and  roams  through 
the  tangled  undergrowths  with  him  when 
Gray  Wolf  hasn't  any  more  interesting  quarry 
in  sight. 

Also  Love  Pirate  is  the  worst  enemy  of  the 
wife  and  home.  "Dolled  up,"  she  haunts 
downtown  in  the  very  thick  of  things,  where 
men  live  their  lives. 

The  wife  in  the  home  is  last  seen  by  her  de- 
parting spouse  in  a  sort  of  wrapper  or  morn- 
ing gown.  When  he  compares  her  appear- 
ance as  he  last  saw  her  with  that  of  the  radiant, 
smartly  shirt-waisted  girl  who  wears  carefully 
dressed  hair,  it  is  likely  to  be  to  the  wife's 
disadvantage. 


WOLF  AND  LOVE  PIRATE     181 

Love  Pirate  knows  her  advantage  an'd  uses 
it.  She  is  on  the  alert  to  attract  men  who  can 
further  her  own  purposes.  She  is  unscrupu- 
lous. And  she  gets  her  training  in  evil  from 
Gray  Wolf. 

Any  large  city  is  filled  with  gray  wolves. 
Some  of  them  are  merely  blase  habitues  of  the 
underworld — others  are  foolish  family  men  in 
search  of  adventure. 

There  are  not  so  many  love  pirates  as  gray 
wolves.  That  is  why  the  gray  wolves  are 
always  hunting.  The  favorite  prey  of  Gray 
Wolf  is  the  unsophisticated  young  girl  who  is 
just  entering  an  industrial  career  and  is  having 
a  hard  time  to  make  both  ends  meet.  The 
cafes  are  favorite  hunting  grounds  of  Gray 
Wolf  after  nightfall,  but  in  the  daytime  he  is 
at  home  among  the  tall  office  buildings  of  the 
business  district. 

It  was  to  find  out  the  methods  of  Gray  Wolf 
that  I  obtained  a  position  as  an  office  girl  with 


i8z     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

a  downtown  concern  in  the  brokerage  line. 
My  duties  were  not  heavy,  but  "tact"  was  re- 
quired in  handling  the  business.  It  was  often 
necessary  to  lie  deliberately  over  the  telephone 
in  order  to  conserve  the  interests  of  this  con- 
cern. 

The  office  girl  who  cannot  or  will  not  lie 
glibly  when  she  is  told  to  do  so  is  not  popular. 
Generally  she  accepts  the  situation,  weakens 
her  position  by  creating  a  sort  of  secret  bond 
between  herself  and  her  employer,  and  thus 
finds  herself  exposed  to  other  indignities. 

In  the  office  that  employed  me  were  two 
other  girls.  One,  Mercedes,  was  an  attractive 
blonde  who  wore  handsome  clothes.  The 
other  does  not  figure  in  this  story.  I  happen 
to  know  that  Mercedes  had  her  clothes  made 
by  a  modiste  whose  lowest  price  is  $80  for  a 
suit.  Also,  Mercedes  lives  in  a  flat  out  South 
that  costs  $70  a  month  and  is  elaborately  fur- 
nished. Mercedes'  salary  is  $15  a  week.  She 


WOLF  AND  LOVE  PIRATE     183 

never  earned  that  much  by  any  office  activities 
that  I  was  able  to  observe. 

Mercedes'  hats  are  creations.  They  are  the 
sweetly  simple  confections  that  cost  out  of  all 
proportion  for  the  materials  in  them. 

Mercedes'  shoes  are  the  $12  a  pair  sort. 
Mercedes  is  popular  with  the  head  of  the  firm. 
He  has  gray  patches  over  his  ears  and  is  him- 
self an  exquisite  in  matters  sartorial. 

After  I  had  been  in  the  place  a  week  Mer- 
cedes whispered  to  me  that  the  second  partner 
of  the  firm,  Mr.  Hunter,  had  "fallen  for  my 
kid  getup." 

"Believe  me,"  said  Mercedes,  "there's  noth- 
ing gets  these  old  goats  like  the  baby  face  stuff 
and  the  hair  in  a  braid.  Hunter  asked  me  to 
frame  it  for  a  luncheon  'prelim.'  " 

"Why,  what  would  he  want  me  to  go  to 
luncheon  for?"  I  objected.  "He  doesn't 
know  me  at  all." 

"That's  just  the  idea,  you  little  rube,"  said 


1 84     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

Mercedes,  patting  her  blonde  curls  as  she 
glanced  in  the  mirror.  "He  wants  to  know 
you." 

"Well,  I'm  not  going  to  luncheon  with  a 
man  I  don't  know  at  all,  except  that  I  am 
working  for  him,"  I  persisted. 

"Say!"  interposed  Mercedes,  lowering  her 
voice  a  little,  "you  won't  go  far  in  the  working 
game  downtown  unless  you  know  how  to 
amuse  the  big  ones  that  give  out  good  jobs. 
Hunter's  married  up  to  the  ears  and  he  don't 
get  along  with  his  wife.  Of  course,  they  got 
a  swell  place  and  all  that,  but  he  stays  down 
at  the  club  a  great  deal.  When  he  wants  to 
take  you  to  lunch,  you're  in  luck,  believe  me, 
Kid." 

Just  then  Mr.  Hunter  came  through  from 
an  inner  office  with  some  papers  in  his  hand. 

"Miss  Mercedes,"  he  said,  "will  you  please 
type  these  reports  and  turn  them  over  to  Mr. 
Carson?" 


WOLF  AND  LOVE  PIRATE     185 

I  am  afraid  my  face  was  suffused  with 
blushes  as  I  realized  this  was  the  man  who 
wanted  to  take  me  to  luncheon  when  I  had 
never  exchanged  a  word  with  him.  Mr. 
Hunter  paused  by  my  desk  and  remarked  that 
it  was  a  "glorious  day."  I  realized  that  he 
had  an  attractive  voice. 

I  had  no  further  opportunity  to  speak  to 
Mercedes  until  that  afternoon,  when  she  told 
me  that  the  date  for  the  luncheon  had  been  all 
fixed  up  and  followed  the  announcement  with 
some  sage  advice. 

"Take  my  tip,"  said  Mercedes ;  "Hunter'll 
treat  you  white.  You've  got  the  makeup  to 
be  a  real  swell  kid  if  you  have  the  right 
clothes,  and  if  you're  friends  with  men  like 
Hunter  they  expect  to  see  that  you've  always 
got  plenty  of  glad  rags.  The  chances  of  peo- 
ple getting  wise  aren't  very  strong  because 
men  like  this  push  have  to  be  careful.  They 
can't  afford  to  get  any  bum  publicity,  see?" 


[i 86     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

"Do  you  mean  that  he  will  buy  clothes  for 
me?"  I  asked. 

"Buy  clothes?"  repeated  Mercedes,  mock- 
ing my  accent.  "Why,  you're  singing  it  right. 
He  will  buy  clothes  and  maybe  a  ring  or  two 
and  a  lot  more.  And  another  thing,  you're 
pretty  safe  with  such  men,  because  they  aren't 
the  kind  that  want  to  go  tearing  round  the 
boulevards  joy  riding  or  any  stunts  like  that. 
What  they  want  is  a  quiet  time  with  a  girl  that 
knows  when  she  is  well  off  and  don't  tell  all 
she  knows." 

"What  does  this  man  expect  of  me  in  return 
for  such  generous  treatment?"  I  demanded. 


CHAPTER  XX 

IN  MERCEDES'  APARTMENT 

MERCEDES  laughed. 

"God's  sake!"  she  said.  "You're  a  comic 
little  fish.  Why,  what  d'you  suppose  a  man 
wants  for  his  generous  treatment?  He  wants 
you  to  be  nice  to  him  and  call  him  'Mister'  in 
the  ofEce  and  'Charlie'  when  you're  outside, 
and  to  look  swell  and  have  a  good  time." 

"Is  he  getting  a  divorce  from  his  wife?"  I 
inquired. 

"Divorce!"  cried  Mercedes,  "I  should  say 
he  ain't.  Why,  don't  you  know  the  Hunters? 
Say,  he's  got  one  of  the  swellest  homes  in  High- 
bridge.  He  and  his  wife  are  a  most  devoted 
couple — got  four  children  and  seven  or  eight 
servants." 

187 


1 88     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

"Well,"  I  remarked  reflectively,  "I  don't 
see  how  he  could  be  seen  in  restaurants  and 
places  like  that  with  a  single  girl  and  not  get 
into  trouble." 

"You  leave  that  to  him.  These  old  guys 
are  wise,  believe  me,"  pursued  my  friend,  the 
Love  Pirate.  "Now,  I've  been  going  with 
old  Goldfish  for  pretty  nearly  four  years  and 
there  hasn't  ever  been  a  whisper.  We  had 
one  old  she  crab  in  the  office  that  got  kind  of 
wise.  That  was  over  a  year  ago.  She  never 
said  a  thing,  but  one  day  she  sniffed  when  I 
had  on  a  new  gown  from  Paris,  and  I  told 
Goldfish  about  it.  She  didn't  last  long  enough 
to  whisper  farewell." 

By  degrees  Mercedes  informed  me  of  the 
conditions  that  exist  in  some  downtown  offices, 
of  the  relations  between  the  girl  and  the  em- 
ployer that  cause  so  many  divorce  suits  in  the 
course  of  a  year  in  Chicago. 

"Say!"  she  advised,  "one  of  the  first  things 


IN  MERCEDES'  APARTMENT     189 

you  want  to  do  is  to  get  a  'steady'  that  will  take 
you  'round  in  public — theaters  and  places  like 
that,  don't  you  see?  You've  got  to  have  a  fel- 
low like  that  for  a  stall.  Get  one  that's  on  the 
marry.  It's  safest  to  have  somebody  for  steady 
company  all  the  time.  You  can  never  tell 
what  might  happen.  If  there's  any  blowup 
all  you've  got  to  do  is  to  show  that  you've  been 
keeping  steady  company  right  along,  and  the 
other  stuff  is  just  malicious  gossip,  see?" 

Then  came  my  personal  experience  with 
Hunter.  He  was  exceedingly  courteous  to  me 
in  the  office — quite  in  the  employerly  way. 
All  it  amounted  to  was  a  display  of  considera- 
tion for  my  inexperience  of  the  business  and  a 
kindly  courtesy  that  would  have  excited  my 
gratitude  and  admiration  if  it  had  not  been 
for  Mercedes'  confidences. 

It  wasn't  a  luncheon  I  attended,  but  an 
elaborate  dinner.  I  pretended  I  had  no  even- 
ing clothes  of  my  own  and  Mercedes  fixed  me 


I9o    MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

in  a  pale  blue  gown  that  I  flatter  myself  suited 
me  very  well.  It  was  a  little  too  wide  in  the 
shoulders,  but  otherwise  I  might  have  owned 
the  gown. 

The  meal  was  served  in  Mercedes'  apart- 
ment. A  middle-aged  woman  was  introduced 
to  me  as  Mercedes'  "Aunt  Pet."  This  woman 
looked  the  part  and  acted  it  very  well.  Mer- 
cedes admitted  to  me  that  she  was  no  relation 
at  all,  but  was  hired  at  $50  a  month  to  sustain 
the  reputation  of  the  house. 

"Aunt  Pet"  did  not  attend  the  dinner.  She 
superintended  all  the  service,  but  did  not  sit 
at  the  table.  That  was  laid  for  four  in  elabo- 
rate fashion  with  rare  flowers  and  some  of  the 
prettiest  favors  I  ever  saw.  There  were  cock- 
tails as  a  preliminary  to  the  dinner  of  five 
courses,  and  wine  was  served  with  each  course, 
champagne  being  the  last  on  the  list  and  the 
most  persistent.  I  refused  to  drink  the  wines 
at  all,  and  this  seemed  to  hurt  my  enter- 


IN  MERCEDES'  APARTMENT     191 

tainers  keenly.  Mercedes  was  especially  cha- 
grined. 

At  last  I  drank  a  small  glass  of  champagne, 
but  I  saw  it  poured  from  a  newly  opened  bottle 
and  steadfastly  declined  to  repeat  the  dose. 

Mercedes  drank  a  good  deal  of  wine;  she 
became  very  loquacious.  She  put  her  arms 
around  Goldfish's  neck  at  the  table  and  he  re- 
proved her  for  it. 

"There's  a  time  and  place  for  everything," 
said  Goldfish  sagely.  He  appeared  to  be 
really  annoyed. 

Throughout  the  meal  Mr.  Hunter  displayed 
toward  me  a  deferential  courtesy  that  really 
was  fascinating.  He  is  skillect  in  the  polite 
arts  and  subtilely  ingratiating. 

Perhaps  my  poor  showing  as  a  conversa- 
tionalist at  the  dinner  table  caused  this  gentle- 
man to  believe  that  I  wished  him  to  lead  up  to 
the  subject  of  our  future  relation  as  Mercedes 
Had  sketched  it.  At  all  events  he  did  so. 


J92     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

Mercedes  and  Goldfish  were  tete-a-tete  in 
the  front  part  of  the  flat.  He  was  somewhat 
exhilarated  by  the  wine.  He  talked  loudly. 
Mr.  Hunter  had  taken  me  into  the  "den"  to 
show  me  a  lot  of  portraits  Mercedes  had  had 
taken  in  bathing  costume  at  a  summer  resort. 
Some  of  them  were  very  daring. 

While  we  were  alone  in  the  room  Mr. 
Hunter  made  no  ungentlemanly  advances. 
Once  he  partly  put  his  arm  round  me  as  he 
escorted  me  through  the  portieres,  but  it  was 
such  a  venture  as  any  well  bred  man  may  make 
without  offense. 

I  began  to  believe  that  Mercedes  had  lied. 
Of  course  it  was  very  irregular — my  being 
there  as  the  guest  of  a  married  man — but  after 
all,  if  he  were  unhappy  with  his  wife  he  might 
seek  mere  harmless  entertainment  without 
being  altogether  a  villain. 

Actually  I  had  begun  to  make  excuses. for 
Gray  Wolf.  I  became  convinced  that  Mer- 


IN  MERCEDES'  APARTMENT     193 

cedes  had  misunderstood  this  man.  Once  we 
were  looking  at  the  pictures  his  face  was  very 
close  to  mine.  I  wondered  if  he  would  seize 
the  opportunity  to  kiss  me,  but  he  did  not. 

I  heard  Mercedes  dancing  in  the  other  room 
and  Goldfish  was  clapping  his  hands.  One  of 
those  automatic  music  things  was  playing  the 
Tango. 

"Mercy's  lots  of  fun,  isn't  she?"  suggested 
Mr.  Hunter. 

"Very  lively,"  I  agreed. 

"Do  you  like  her?"  pursued  my  companion. 

"Quite  well,"  I  lied. 

There  was  a  pause. 

"Clare,"  began  Mr.  Hunter. 

I  started.  It  was  the  first  time  he  had  ven- 
tured upon  my  supposed  first  name. 

"How  would  you  like  to  live  here  with 
Mercedes  and  be  my  little  friend?"  went  on 
the  Gray  Wolf.  "You  would  be  very  com- 
fortable, I  think." 


i94     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

"I  can't  live  in  a  place  like  this  on  six  dol- 
lars a  week,"  I  said.  "It  is  all  I  can  do  to 
pay  my  board  where  I  am." 

"Well,  there'll  never  be  any  quarrels  be- 
tween us  about  what  money  you  need,  if  you 
want  to  come,"  he  pursued. 

Hunter  was  sitting  on  the  edge  of  a  low 
divan.  His  elbows  were  on  his  knees  and  his 
chin  in  his  hands.  His  eyes  were  fixed  on 
mine  and  I  shuddered.  The  man  was  posi- 
tively purring  like  a  cat.  I  never  experienced 
so  strange  a  sensation  as  that  caused  by  his 
steady  gaze. 

With  an  effort  I  got  up  and  staggered  to- 
ward the  door.  It  was  a  real  stagger.  I  was 
ill  from  excitement  and  fear  of  discovery. 

"Mr.  Hunter,"  I  pleaded,  "please  give  me 
time  to  think  this  over.  I  must  go  home  now 
-I  must.  I'm  ill." 

"Good  Lord!"  gasped  Gray  Wolf,  "what  a; 
brute  I  am!  Mercedes.  Come,  Mercedes!" 


IN  MERCEDES'  APARTMENT     195 

Mercedes  came  running  and  I  told  her  I 
must  go  home — that  I  was  subject  to  fits  and 
that  I  felt  one  coming  on.  It  was  a  false  move, 
because  the  men  insisted  on  having  Mercedes 
go  with  me  in  the  taxi,  but  by  the  time  we 
reached  the  Congress  Hotel  I  was  able  to  per- 
suade her  that  I  could  reach  my  place  better 
on  the  street  car.  I  told  her  I  "was  afraid  to 
talk." 

Mercedes  went  home  in  the  taxi.  I  went 
home  in  the  street  car  to  Mother.  Glad,  in- 
deed, I  was  to  get  there,  but  after  all  I  would 
not  have  missed  that  experience.  It  told  me 
many  volumes  in  a  chapter. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

CARMEN  OF  THE  TORPEDO  CAFE 

THE  Torpedo  Cafe  is  a  gay  place.  I  was  told 
about  Carmen  of  the  Torpedo  Cafe.  She  was 
described  as  one  of  the  most  beautiful  girls 
ever  seen  in  a  cafe — big,  black  Spanish  eyes, 
masses  of  raven  hair  and  a  slight  sinuous  form 
that  lent  itself  naturally  to  the  queer  fandangos 
and  so-called  Spanish  dances  with  which 
Carmen,  in  her  liveliest  moods,  is  wont  to  re- 
gale the  guests  of  the  Torpedo. 

So  I  sought  out  Carmen  and  made  her  be- 
lieve I  had  Spanish  blood  in  my  veins.  That 
was  easy  enough,  since  Carmen  cannot  speak 
a  word  of  her  supposed  native  tongue  and  is 
really  at  home  "back  of  the  stock  yards." 

Carmen  is  frankly  a  thief.     She  "dopes" 

the  drinks  of  her  victims  trapped  in  the  Tor- 

196 


CARMEN  OF  THE  CAFfi       197 

pedo  and  then  robs  them.  Her  profits  from 
this  nefarious  trade  average,  when  business  is 
good,  about  $25  a  night.  She  is  protected  in 
her  work  by  a  score  of  thugs  and  pluguglies 
disguised  as  waiters,  whose  business  it  is  to 
"play  up"  to  the  women  who  infest  the  place. 

I  had  been  trying  to  induce  Carmen  to  take 
an  interest  in  some  other  occupation  than  this 
when  she  turned  the  tables  and  insisted  that 
the  Torpedo  was  no  place  for  me.  She  said 
if  I  went  into  the  place  I  surely  would  en- 
counter trouble.  After  her  warning  it  was 
with  real  trepidation  that  I  entered  the  cafe, 
even  though  professionally  chaperoned. 

The  roof  of  the  place  is  decorated  with 
many  lights  and  there  are  paintings  in  the  nude 
on  most  of  the  available  wall  space.  A  crowd 
of  white-coated  waiters  flit  among  a  score  or 
more  tables  at  which  were  seated  a  great  many 
women  whose  status  in  life  was  not  to  be 
doubted. 


198     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

At  a  piano  near  our  table  sat  an  effeminate 
young  man  who  tossed  off  a  glass  of  some 
liquid  and  then  struck  up  a  wriggly  ragtime 
tune  that  set  the  customers  jingling  their 
glasses  and  tapping  with  their  feet,  the  pianist 
meantime  humping  his  shoulders  and  twisting 
and  contorting  his  body  a  la  Paderewski. 

"Say,  Kid,"  whispered  Carmen,  "think  of 
me  working  for  eight  a  week  in  some  depart- 
ment store  when  I  can  cop  twenty  or  thirty  a 
night  at  this  game." 

"Nobody  seems  to  be  making  anything  now 
except  a  noise,"  I  suggested. 

"They're  layin'  pipe,"  smiled  Carmen. 
"Watch  'em  get  busy  after  a  while." 

A  pale  sleepy-looking  young  man  came  and 
sat  down  at  our  table.  He  nodded  to  Car- 
men, but  did  not  appear  to  be  regarded  by  her 
with  particular  interest.  Carmen  presented 
him  to  me  as  "Izzy  the  Coke."  She  explained 
that  girls  had  to  have  escorts,  and  that  Izzy 


CARMEN  OF  THE  CAFfi       199 

was  one  of  an  army  of  "professional  escorts," 
that  worked  in  the  place.  She  said  they  were 
hired  by  the  management  to  sit  with  girls  until 
"live  ones"  showed  up. 

Men  were  beginning  to  come  into  the  place 
alone.  How  they  found  their  way  was  a  mys- 
tery to  me  until  Carmen  told  me  they  had  been 
"steered."  As  soon  as  a  customer  entered  he 
was  invited  to  sit  at  one  or  another  of  the 
tables,  and  the  preliminaries  of  the  game  be- 
gan. The  waiters  gave  the  "buyers"  no  rest. 
It  was  round  after  round  of  drinks  and  the 
"live  ones"  paid  for  everything. 

Every  few  minutes  one  of  the  women  would 
go  out  with  a  man,  and  after  an  hour  or  so  I 
saw  the  same  woman  drifting  back — alone. 
Some  of  the  girls  were  very  young. 

Two  young  men  came  and  sat  down  at  our 
table.  Carmen  told  me  I  must  "play  up." 

"Just  keep  one  of  them  interested  while  I  fix 
the  other  one,"  ordered  Delilah.  "It's  the 


200     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

fellow  with  the  long  hair  that' s  got  the  roll," 

The  young  fellow  I  was  talking  to  told  me  it 
was  his  first  visit  to  Chicago.  He  had  heard 
a  good  deal  about  it  being  a  "gay  town,"  but 
he  thought  the  Torpedo  was  the  best  place  he 
had  struck.  I  made  up  my  mind  to  get  that 
boy  out  of  the  den  if  I  could. 

"You  may  take  me  home,"  I  said  to  the 
young  man. 

"Thanks,"  he  grinned.  Then  to  his  friend: 
"I'll  meet  you  down  at  the  hotel,  Hi.  I'm 
going  to  take  this  young  lady  home." 

"Ain't  so  slow  yourself,"  laughed  Carmen, 
meaningly. 

That  young  fellow  led  me  to  my  own  door. 
I  invited  him  in  and  my  mother  talked  to  him 
until  nearly  two  o'clock  in  the  morning.  I 
wonder  if  he  will  ever  go  to  the  Torpedo 
again.  He  really  was  a  very  decent  boy. 

At  two-fifteen  the  telephone  rang.  It  was 
Carmen  on  the  line. 


CARMEN  OF  THE  CAFfi       20 ii 

"Say!"  she  giggled,  "I  rolled  that  boob  for 
forty." 

Now,  if  I  were  straining  for  dramatic 
effects,  that  would  be  the  end  of  this  chapter, 
but  it  isn't.  The  next  day  my  young  friend  of 
the  Torpedo  Cafe  called  me  up  and  said  that 
his  fellow  townsman  lay  critically  ill  in  a  hos- 
pital, apparently  suffering  from  some  drug. 

I  at  once  sought  out  Carmen.  It  was  in  the 
early  afternoon  when  I  found  her.  When 
taxed  with  having  'drugged  the  man,  she 
denied  it,  and  insisted  that  he  had  left  her 
company  for  that  of  two  men  known  to  the 
underworld  as  capable  of  any  crime.  Carmen 
told  me  she  had  taken  the  money  from  her  vic- 
tim while  he  was  in  an  alcoholic  sleep,  but 
that  soon  afterwards  he  awoke,  demanding 
more  drink,  and  went  in  search  of  it  without 
discovering  his  loss. 

"He'd  have  been  frisked  before  he  got  a 
block,  anyhow,"  she  insisted.  c  Why  shouldn't , 


202     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

I  have  the  money  as  well  as  some  jackroller?" 
At  all  events,  the  man  died  two  days  after- 
ward— of  "pneumonia,"  according  to  the  death 
certificate.  Perhaps  that  is  what  he  died  of, 
but  I  don't  believe  it. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

IKE  BLOSSOM 

I  HAD  heard  a  great  deal  about  Ike  Blossom, 
captain  of  a  pirate  ship  in  the  "district"  known 
as  "Freiheit's."  This  had  always  been  de- 
clared one  of  the  most  notorious  resorts  in  Chi- 
cago, and  only  recently  has  been  closed  up. 
fThe  final  locking  of  the  doors  came  after  a 
shooting  affray  in  which  one  man  was  killed. 
However,  my  visit  there  was  some  time  before 
this. 

One  night  with  a  detective  friend  of  mine  I 
paid  a  visit  to  Freiheit's  dance  hall  and  cafe. 
The  detective  was  of  my  own  sex.  She  was 
attired  like  a  lily  of  the -field.  I  flatter  myself 
that  the  plum-colored  broadcloth  with  fake 
ermine  facings  that  I  wore  on  this  expedition 
did  much  to  secure  the  entree. 

203 


204     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

The  detective  believed  that  at  Freiheit's  we 
might  get  a  clew  which  would  lead  to  the  dis- 
covery of  Mary  Holden. 

We  secured  the  services  of  two  men  friends 
to  escort  us.  When  we  entered  the  hall  with 
its  gleaming  lights  and  artistic  decorations  I 
was  surprised  that  so  attractive  a  place  could 
have  achieved  so  evil  a  reputation. 

The  tables  for  the  serving  of  refreshment 
formed  a  circle  'rou^d  the  room.  There  was 
nothing  about  this  place  to  suggest  evil.  Per- 
haps well  meaning  people  had  exaggerated  the 
menace  of  Freiheit's.  As  far  as  I  was  able  to 
determine  the  men  and  women  in  the  place 
seemed  respectable.  This  was  a  first  impres- 
sion. 

I  have  attended  some  of  the  swaggerest 
dancing  affairs  ever  held  in  Chicago,  and  I 
must  confess  that  in  all  my  life  I  have  never 
seen  more  really  beautiful  girls  and  women  on 


IKE  BLOSSOM  205 

a  ballroom  floor  than  were  congregated  at 
Freiheit's  that  night. 

It  was  true,  also,  that  while  some  of  them 
were  extravagantly  gowned,  the  majority  were 
dressed  elegantly  and  in  good  taste.  Many  of 
the  men  were  in  evening  dress.  The  spectacle 
was  one  worth  going  to  see  simply  for  its 
beauty. 

The  woman  detective  pinched  my  arm  and 
pointed  to  a  big  man  in  a  gray  suit  and  soft 
hat,  who  stood  at  one  end  of  the  hall,  survey- 
ing the  spectacle. 

"That's  Ike,"  she  said,  "looking  over  his 
flock." 

The  man  seemed  to  be  appraising  every- 
thing— the  size  of  the  crowd,  the  activity  of 
the  waiters,  the  proportion  of  women  to  men — 
the  chances  of  trade.  He  had  an  embracing 
eye. 

We  chose  a  table  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 


2o6     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

hall  from  that  at  which  we  had  entered,  being 
thus  enabled  to  observe  others  who  arrived 
and  to  visualize  the  constantly  augmented 
throng. 

We  were  barely  seated  before  a  waiter  stood 
at  our  table  ready  to  serve  us  drinks.  The 
detective  told  me  we  must  order  something  or 
they  would  be  wanting  us  to  move  on.  She 
ordered  beer  for  two. 

Just  then  the  pianist  struck  up  a  catchy 
syncopated  air  and  a  pretty  girl,  one  of  the  en- 
tertainers, danced  out  from  between  a  row 
of  palms,  singing  a  popular  song.  She  danced 
one  of  those  pseudo-oriental  things  that  call 
for  all  sorts  of  wriggling  and  contortion  of  the 
body.  It  was  graceful  in  a  certain  way,  but 
undeniably  sensuous.  The  words  of  the  song 
were  as  suggestive  as  the  dance. 

Later,  an  orchestra  in  the  balcony  above 
struck  up  a  lively  twostep  and  fifty  or  more 
couples  got  up  from  the  tables  and  began 


IKE  BLOSSOM  207 

dancing.  There  was  hardly  an  unskilled 
dancer  among  them.  Nearly  all  the  steps 
executed  were  intricate  and  most  of  them 
graceful,  but  it  was  scarcely  a  ballroom  ex- 
hibition. 

There  was  something  stagey  about  the  danc- 
ing at  this  period  of  the  evening's  entertain- 
ment, and  later  on  I  found  out  why.  Most 
of  the  men  and  women  in  these  preliminary 
numbers  were  paid  professionals. 

Soon  the  place  filled  with  real  patrons — 
those  who  pay  to  dance  and  pay  for  the  drinks 
they  get,  and  really  support  places  like  Frei- 
heit's. 

There  were  old  men  with  young  girls,  and 
old  girls  with  young  men.  There  were 
women  lacquered  like  Japanese  pottery,  their 
real  features  completely  hidden  by  paint  and 
powder. 

There  were  girls  not  over  fifteen  years  old 
with  men  old  enough  to  be  their  grandfathers. 


208     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

In  most  instances  the  girls  were  said  to  be 
habitues  of  the  place. 

At  least  twenty  of  the  young  girls  on  the 
floor  were,  physically  speaking,  perfect  speci- 
mens of  American  girlhood.  I  pointed  them 
out  to  the  woman  detective. 

"They  are  the  aristocracy  of  the  profession," 
she  said. 

These  young  women  are  in  the  heyday  of 
their  careers  in  the  levee.  They  will  look 
fresh  and  beautiful  as  they  do  now  for  perhaps 
six  or  eight  months.  After  the  first  winter 
one  can  begin  to  pick  out  the  lines  round  their 
faces  and  little  perpendicular  marks  at  the 
corners  of  their  mouths.  That  is  the  begin- 
ning. About  the  second  or  third  year  they 
become  coarsened  to  an  astounding  degree- 
physically  as  well  as  mentally.  Loose  living 
and  mental  degradation  show  in  their  faces 
first.  The  lines  of  the  face  change.  The 
features  become  exaggerated. 


IKE  BLOSSOM  209 

"A  young  woman,"  said  my  friend,  "who  is 
inclined  to  heaviness  will  become  gross  and 
gelatinous  within  a  few  years.  In  five  years 
she  is  hideous." 

The  strange  part  of  it  all,  I  discovered,  even 
the  oldest  of  the  faded  women  one  encounters 
in  places  like  Freiheit's  still  believes  that  she 
retains  some  degree  of  her  original  attractive- 
ness— her  ability  to  beguile  men. 

A  survey  of  Freiheit's  soon  convinced  me 
why  they  called  Ike  Blossom  the  "King  of  the 
Levee."  In  the  parlance  of  the  underworld 
he  had  "Queens"  galore  swarming  about  his 
palace  of  iniquity. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

MAZELLE 

ONE  of  the  most  attractive  girls  in  Ike  Blos- 
som's dance  hall  was  referred  to  as  Mazelle. 
If  there  is  a  more  strikingly  beautiful  girl  in 
Chicago  I  cannot  imagine  where  she  can  be. 
This  brilliant  brunette  has  all  the  delicate 
shadings  of  coloring  and  expression  that  go  to 
make  real  beauty.  Her  lithe  young  figure  is 
the  epitome  of  grace  and  her  every  gesture  is 
indicative  of  gentle  breeding. 

Now  how  in  the  world  did  Mazelle  become 
a  denizen  of  the  half-world?  I  determined  to 
ask  her.  This  was  more  easily  planned  than 
accomplished,  because  of  Mazelle's  tremen- 
dous popularity.  Men  watched  every  move, 
anxious  to  engage  her  attention  if  oppor- 
tunity presented. 

210 


MAZELLE  211 

At  last  I  managed  to  be  presented.  My 
woman  detective  friend  did  it.  She  knew 
Mazelle  and  had  tried  to  get  her  out  of  the 
district. 

"Breaking  into  the  fold?"  inquired  the  dark- 
eyed  Delilah,  after  I  had  been  introduced. 

"Just  looking  on,"  I  said. 

"It's  a  dangerous  diversion,"  she  retorted. 
"All  of  us  are  onlookers  at  first.  I  was  too." 
She  lighted  a  cigarette. 

"Tell  me  about  it,"  I  begged. 

"What  magazine?"  she  laughed. 

"None,"  I  assured  her — "I  am  just  an  every- 
day person  who  is  looking  for  a  missing 
girl." 

"Good  gracious !"  she  said.  "Don't  tell  me 
you're  Lucy  Page  Gaston?"  She  puffed 
slowly  at  the  cigarette. 

The  exclamation  was  accompanied  with  a 
comical  gesture  of  apprehension  that  made  me 
laugh  in  spite  of  myself.  Miss  Gaston,  you 


212     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

know,  is  the  woman  who  is  warring  on  ciga- 
rettes. Mazelle  is  an  artiste. 

"My  idea  is  that  a  girl  as  brilliant  as  you 
are  ought  to  find  field  for  her  talents  superior 
to  this,"  I  ventured. 

"Dear  me,"  she  laughed,  "that's  rather  hard 
on  my  philanthropic  friend  Blossom,  isn't  it?" 

"Is  he  a  philanthropist  any  of  the  time?"  I 
queried. 

"Ikey?"  she  shrugged.  "Why,  poor,  dear 
Ike  is  the  most  maligned  man  in  this  sinful 
town.  He's  positively  reeking  with  the  spirit 
of  philanthropy." 

Just  at  that  moment  gray-clad  Blossom 
passed  down  the  room.  Mazelle  caught  his 
eye  and  he  bowed.  She  signaled  him,  laugh- 
ing merrily  at  the  joke  of  it  all. 

"Ikey,  dear,"  she  babbled,  "tell  me  honestly 
and  truly,  now — aren't  you  a  philanthropist?" 

"Got  your  kiddin'  clothes  on  again,  Maze?" 
grinned  the  man  in  gray.  "Why,  I'd  be  as 


MAZELLE  213 

big  a  hit  in  a  council  of  philanthropists  as 
you'd  be  in  a  mothers'  meeting.  It's  an  even 
break." 

The  large  Mr.  Blossom  passed  down  the 
hall.  His  shoulders  were  shaking  with 
laughter. 

An  instant  later  Mazelle  was  sailing  down 
the  polished  floor  with  a  man  who  claimed  her 
for  a  dance.  They  told  me  the  man  was  crazy 
to  marry  her,  and  she  wouldn't  have  him  be- 
cause he  made  his  money  in  whiskey. 

Do  you  recall  what  I  wrote  about  the  con- 
tradictions of  character  to  be  found  in  the 
underworld?  Well,  consider  Mazelle.  She 
was  ruined  by  her  first  drink  of  whiskey.  She 
has  never  taken  a  drink  of  alcoholic  liquor 
since  she  awoke  to  realization  of  her  shame. 
She  is  a  rara  avis  among  the  demimonde. 

"For  my  sins,"  said  Mazelle,  the  last  time  I 
saw  her,  "I  shall  probably  live  a  long  time. 
At  all  events  there  is  one  man  I  want  to  kill, 


2i4     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

and  some  day  I  expect  to  meet  him.  That  day 
I  want  to  be  very  sober." 

And  talking  about  contradictions  of  char- 
acter, Mazelle  is  the  bond  slave  of  a  heavy- 
fisted  rascal  of  a  waiter  named  Monohan.  If 
she  doesn't  gather  much  money  he  beats  her. 

Couples  were  constantly  leaving  the  place 
by  a  certain  exit.  I  asked  where  they  were 
going. 

"They  go  to  the  hotels  hereabouts,"  said  my 
friend — "that  is  part  of  the  play.  If  these 
young  girls  could  be  kept  in  the  hall  until 
closing  time  and  then  sent  home  it  wouldn't 
be  so  bad,  but  the  dives  called  'hotels'  are  just 
traps  for  them.  It  is  the  stronghold  of  the 
system." 

Young  girls  were  staggering  about  with 
flushed  faces  and  bright  eyes.  They  laughed 
unnaturally  and  danced  with  disgraceful 
abandon. 

My  guide  remarked  that  if  I  wanted  to  get 


MAZELLE  215 

a  real  light  on  the  sort  of  talk  carried  on  among 
young  girls  I  would  better  step  into  the  wash- 
room for  a  moment.  I  did. 

Never  had  I  imagined  that  girls  under  what- 
ever provocation  could  frame  such  awful 
phrases  as  fell  casually  from  the  lips  of  these 
children. 

As  I  was  wiping  my  hands  on  a  towel 
handed  me  with  ceremony  by  a  colored  woman 
attendant  a  very  young  girl  lurched  toward  me 
and  poked  a  little  sack  of  tobacco  with  a  pack- 
age of  cigarette  papers  into  my  hand. 

"Roll  me  one,"  she  hiccoughed;  "I'm  all  to 
the  blowsy." 

I  can't  roll  a  cigarette,  but  I  thought  I  could. 
After  I  had  tried  twice,  intent  on  evading  the 
exposure  of  my  amateur  standing  in  the  place, 
little  fifteen-year-old  Tosca  snatched  the 
"makin's"  away. 

"You're  a of  a  rounder,"  she  sneered. 

"Why,  I  can  roll  better'n  that  with  my  toes." 


2i6     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

And  I  guess  she  could.     At  any  rate  I  didn't 
dispute  her. 

Five  minutes  later  we  were  out  of  the  place. 
I  had  seen  enough. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

"THE  CAVE" 

I  UNDERTOOK  to  look  into  certain  saloons  with 
hotel  attachments.  The  first  place  I  entered 
was  one  of  those  that  make  a  pretense  of  in- 
sisting that  escorts  must  accompany  the  girls 
who  enter — and  they  supply  the  escorts.  I 
was  joined  by  a  man  who  asked  me  how  busi- 
ness was.  My  reply  was  that  it  wras  "pretty 
tough  sledding." 

"Well,"  he  said,  "if  you  are  broke,  Tom  will 
stake  you.  Of  course  we  want  you  to  stick 
around  and  get  the  kale  when  it's  here,  but 
Tom  won't  see  you  want  for  nothing." 

Just  then  a  little  girl  about  sixteen  entered 
the  rear  door.  She  ought  to  have  been  in 
short  skirts  as  far  as  her  age  was  concerned, 
but  she  proved  to  be  a  habitue  of  the  place. 

217 


2i8     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

"Come  over  here  and  meet  Mabel,"  said  my 
supposed  escort  to  the  new  girl.  Mabel  was 
the  name  I  had  given  him.  I  forget  what  my 
last  name  is  supposed  to  have  been. 

Tora  came  over  and  ordered  the  inevitable 
drinks. 

"Of  course,"  she  said,  "this  ain't  no  angel 
food  bakery,  but  there's  worse." 

"Do  they  really  give  you  money?"  I  asked. 

"Oh,  they'll  hand  you  a  few  bones  if  you're 
down  to  your  stocking  feet,"  she  laughed, 
"but  they  hold  onto  you  when  it  comes  to  set- 
tling. I  never  have  a  cent  I  can  call  my  own. 
They  get  it  all  away,  one  way  or  another." 

"How  old  are  you?"  I  asked. 

"Fifteen  past,"  she  giggled.  "Say,  I'm 
some  mover  for  my  age.  Tom  says  there  ain't 
a  wiser  girl  on  the  street  than  what  I  am." 

"Is  Tom  the  proprietor  of  the  place?"  I 
asked. 

"Naw;  he's  working  for  another  guy  that's 


"THE  CAVE"  219 

workin'  for  somebody  else  that's  leasing  from 
somebody  else.  I  guess  the  brewery  furnishes 
the  money." 

Just  then  a  group  of  young  men  entered  the 
place,  and  one  of  them  signaled  to  my  com- 
panion. She  rose  and  joined  the  party  at  the 
other  table.  There  was  some  little  conversa- 
tion, and  then  Tora,  as  they  called  her,  came 
back  to  urge  me  to  join  the  party. 

I  refused  on  the  plea  that  I  was  feeling 
"bad,"  and  couldn't  drink.  On  that  plea  I 
got  out  of  the  place  and  entered  another  of 
similar  stripe  farther  down  the  street. 

In  this  place  there  is  a  dark  rear  room.  In 
one  corner  of  it  I  saw  a  girl  sitting  alone.  She 
was  leaning  over  a  table,  her  head  in  her  arms. 
There  were  no  waiters  present,  so  I  walked  up 
to  her  and  touched  her  hand. 

When  she  looked  up  I  was  shocked.  It  was 
Alice,  the  pretty  little  girl  who  had  come  down 
to  show  me  her  gay  clothes  that  Christmas 


220     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

Eve  in  the  department  store  just  before  closing 
time.  She  recognized  me  and  burst  into 
tears. 

"You  down  on  the  row  too?"  she  wept. 
"Ain't  this  a  h—  of  a  life?" 

Her  shoulders  heaved  and  she  sobbed  piti- 
fully. 

"How'd  you  know  I  was  here?"  she  de- 
manded. 

"I  didn't  know.  God  guided  me,"  I  told 
her. 

"Then  I  wish  He'd  got  busy  sooner,"  she 
gasped  between  sobs;  "it's  too  late  to  get  me 
out  now." 

I  explained  to  her  that  I  knew  a  place  where 
she  would  be  given  a  home  and  taken  care  of 
until  I  could  find  her  work,  and  she  seemed  to 
be  thinking  it  over. 

"Say,  do  you  want  to  do  me  a  favor?"  she 
asked,  suddenly.  And  when  I  assured  her  I 
did,  she  blurted  out:  "Then  for  God's  sake 


"THE  CAVE"  221 

get  me  a  good  sure-shot  dose  of  poison — that's 
what  I  want.  And,  first  of  all,  get  me  a  big 
slug  of  whiskey.  I'm  dyin'  on  my  feet." 

The  hardest  job  I  have  had  in  a  good  many 
months  was  to  get  Alice  to  go  with  me.  She 
told  me  that  nearly  every  rascal  of  the  under- 
world knew  her  by  sight  and  would  get  her 
thrown  out  of  any  position  she  might  enter. 

"Well,  let  them  try  it,"  I  answered.  "I 
don't  believe  they  will  dare." 

"Another  thing,  I  owe  some  of  these  guys 
as  much  as  $20  and  $25  apiece  in  money  bor- 
rowed," she  went  on.  "They'll  always  slip 
you  money  when  you're  drinking,  so  you 
always  owe  'em  something.  I  don't  remember 
getting  any  of  the  money,  but  they  say  I  owe 
it." 

Well,  Alice  is  working  in  the  kitchen  of  a 
private  sanitarium.  She  has  been  there  sev- 
eral months  and  is  apparently  quite  content. 
I  visited  her  just  a  short  while  ago,  and  her 


222     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

one  desire  is  to  keep  safely  beyond  the  ken  of 
"Watchful  Johnny." 

A  few  nights  ago  I  paid  a  visit  to  The  Cave. 
That  is  the  last  resort  of  the  unfortunate 
woman.  In  the  vernacular  they  refer  to  the 
place  as  "Coffee  and  Rolls."  That  is  all  any 
woman  gets  who  works  there. 

Madeline  was  sitting  at  one  of  the  tables. 
We  have  tried  to  induce  her  to  reform,  but  she 
is  beyond  saving,  I  fear.  Morphine,  cocaine 
and  whiskey  have  destroyed  her  will. 

A  very  old  man  who  looked  as  though  he 
might  have  seen  better  days  staggered  across 
the  floor.  The  Cave  is  surrounded  with  boxes, 
in  which  couples  may  sit.  This  is  against  the 
law,  I  think. 

"There's  an  old  down  and  outer,"  said 
Madeline.  "He  used  to  be  down  at  the  old 
California,  in  Custom  House  Place,  years  ago. 
Too*  much  whiskey.  He  still  hangs  on  because 
somebody's  always  ready  to  buy  him  a  drink." 


"THE  CAVE"  223 

The  old  man  raised  his  head.  "I  Would 
Not  Live  Always,"  he  sang.  His  voice  shook. 
I  turned  away.  I  could  not  bear  the  sight. 

"It's  the  old  story,"  Madeline  continued, 
"but  the  strange  part  is  when  you've  got  health 
and  strength  you  never  figure  that  what  gets 
all  others  is  going  to  get  you  too.  You 
couldn't  warn  anybody  off  by  telling  them  to 
look  at  Old  Whiskers  there,"  she  soliloquized. 

The  old  man  finished  his  song.  I  was  too 
much  moved  to  applaud.  A  duet  was  started 
by  two  girls.  Their  hoarse  voices  jangled  dis- 
cordantly. I  bade  Madeline  good  night. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

THE  ESCAPE 

THERE  are  hundreds  of  girls  in  Chicago,  now 
respectably  employed,  who  have  been  dragged 
out  of  the  jaws  of  living  death  by  women 
whose  work  is  done  quietly  and  effectively. 
Many  of  these  women  are  not  known  as  philan- 
thropists or  crusaders.  They  try  to  keep  out 
of  the  limelight  so  that  they  may  be  more  effec- 
tive in  their  work.  It  is  to  the  indefatigable 
patience  of  these  good  women  that  so  many 
girls  are  snatched  from  the  bondage  of  Watch- 
ful Johnny  of  the  System. 

On  my  way  downtown  a  few  days  after  my 
experience  at  The  Cave  I  read  with  interest  a 
story  in  the  newspaper  about  a  girl  who  had 

been  arrested  in  a  raid  on  a  bawdy  house. 

224 


THE  ESCAPE  225 

The  account  told  how  the  girl  had  endeavored 
to  escape  from  the  clutches  of  the  slavers,  and 
how  her  alleged  husband,  "Bull"  Tevis,  a  no- 
torious underworld  creature,  had  beaten  her. 
I  lost  no  time  in  going  to  the  police  station 
where  the  newspaper  stated  the  girl  was  being 
detained. 

I  asked  the  matron  at  the  station  to  see  the 
girl,  and  she  led  me  upstairs  into  a  large  room 
enclosed  by  iron  bars.  Over  in  a  corner  of 
this  large  cell,  for  indeed  it  was  a  cell,  I  saw 
a  girl  sobbing  heavily.  I  walked  over  to  her. 
She  turned  her  face  from  me. 

"You  can't  hide  from  me,"  I  said.  "I 
would  know  you  anywhere." 

The  girl  was  Mary  Holden,  pretty  Mary 
Holden,  for  whom  I  had  been  searching. 

"Why  do  you  come  here?"  she  asked,  not 
looking  up. 

"Because,"  I  replied,  "I  want  to  take  you 
back  to  your  mother." 


226     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

The  girl  arose  and  rushed  into  my  arms, 
holding  me  tight  in  her  embrace.  The  light 
had  begun  to  flicker  again  in  her  life, 

"I  want  to  be  good,"  she  cried.  "I  want  to 
be  good." 

The  matron's  eyes  filled  with  tears. 

"Come,"  said  the  pleasant-faced  matron, 
"there  are  some  big,  comfortable  chairs  over 
here,  where  you  can  visit,"  and  she  pointed 
toward  the  center  of  the  room. 

She  then  went  out  through  the  big  iron  door. 

"You  can  speak  freely,"  I  said  to  Mary. 
"That  is,  if  you  trust  me?" 

"Yes,"  she  began,  "I  do  trust  you  ever  so 
much." 

There  was  a  brief  silence. 

"Do  you  think  you  could  get  me  out  of 
here?"  she  inquired. 

"I  can  try,"  I  returned. 

"If  you  only  could,"  with  entreaty.  "I'd 
do  anything." 


THE  ESCAPE  227 

"Would  you  return  to  your  mother?"  I  in- 
terrupted. 

"My  mother!"  she  cried.  "Will  she  take 
me  back?" 

"Your  mother  wants  you  to  come  home." 

A  look  of  shame  swept  over  her  young  face 
as  she  cried,  "I  can't  go  back  home.  What 
will  they  think  of  me?" 

"But  your  mother  loves  you  enough  to  move 
away  from  Limaville,  to  take  you  to  a  new 
town  where  you  can  begin  your  life  again." 

"If  we  only  could,"  she  faltered,  her  face 
lighting  up  with  hope.  Suddenly  tears 
gushed  from  her  eyes,  and  in  broken  phrases 
she  told  me  her  story,  told  me  all  that  had 
happened  to  her  since  that  day  she  left  her 
home  to  seek  work  in  Chicago. 

Pathetically  she  related  the  difficulty  she 
had  had  in  getting  a  position  which  would  pay 
her  enough  to  live  comfortably.  How,  after 
heartbreaking  disappointments,  she  had  man- 


228     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

aged  to  get  work  in  the  department  store,  the 
same  one  in  which  I  had  worked  the  day  be- 
fore Christmas. 

There  she  met  Bill— Bill  King,  the  flashily 
dressed  youth  "who  was  related  to  one  of  the 
bosses  upstairs."  King  invited  her  to  go  to 
lunch.  Her  slim  purse  had  prompted  her  to 
accept  the  invitation.  When  their  friendship 
ripened,  King  bought  her  presents,  fine  clothes, 
and  treated  her  "right."  Then  he  introduced 
her  to  Tevis— "Bull"  Teris. 

Tevis  made  love  to  her;  he  promised  her  a 
little  home  of  her  own,  to  take  her  out  of 
drudgery.  She  accepted.  Then  a  marriage 
ceremony  was  performed.  Later  she  learned 
it  was  only  a  mock  marriage  ceremony.  The 
same  day  she  found  out  the  kind  of  man  "Bull" 
Tevis  really  was. 

'It  was  not  until  the  girl  had  been  placed  in 
a  questionable  hotel  that  Tevis'  real  purpose 
was  made  known  to  her.  One  night  a  man 


THE  ESCAPE  229 

broke  into  her  room  while  Tevis  was  away. 
Mary  fought  him  like  a  young  tigress. 

While  she  was  still  hysterical  from  the  abuse 
to  which  she  had  been  subjected,  Tevis  re- 
turned. His  rage  was  magnificent.  He  be- 
gan berating  little  Mary  with  the  vilest  abuse 
conceivable,  declaring  in  a  loud  voice  that  she 
had  deceived  him. 

In  vain,  Mary  said,  she  protested.  She  was 
beaten  into  silence.  Tevis'  "honor"  had  been 
outraged  and  he  took  good  care  that  the  fact 
should  be  advertised.  That  was  the  first  essen- 
tial. 

Mary  said  she  labored  and  prayed  in  an 
effort  to  convince  her  "husband"  that  she  had 
fought  desperately  against  the  attack  of  the 
man  who  entered  her  room.  She  begged 
him  to  believe  that  she  had  never  seen  the  man 
before  in  her  life,  that  she  did  not  know  him, 
that  she  resisted  with  all  her  strength. 

"For  two  days  he  left  me  alone,"  continued 


230     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

Mary,  "but  carefully  watched  me,  you  may  be 
sure.  Then  he  reappeared.  He  had  a  propo- 
sition to  make.  He  said  he  did  not  feel  like 
living  with  me  after  what  had  happened,  but 
he  said  he  felt  I  ought  to  be  willing  to  make 
amends  to  him  for  the  wrong  I  had  done.  He 
threatened  to  write  my  mother  his  own  version 
of  the  story,  and  again  I  ple&ded. 

"And  this  was  his  proposition!  I  was  to 
enter  a  vile  place,  and  my  earnings  were  to  be 
turned  over  to  him  for  a  certain  period,  after 
which,  as  he  suggested,  I  should  be  permitted 
to  make  money  for  myself. 

"Then  I  began  to  sense  the  scheme.  I  ac- 
cused Tevis  of  having  plotted  with  the  man 
who  attacked  me  for  the  purpose  of  com- 
pelling me  to  enter  a  sinful  life.  He  denied 
it,  but  the  denial  was  not  convincing. 

"Then  I  was  taken  to  that  house  where  you 
found  me.  You  know  how  I  got  away,  but 


THE  ESCAPE  231 

the  following  day  one  of  the  'gang'  picked  me 
up  and  I  was  returned  like  a  lost  article  to  my 
'husband.' " 

The  girl  paused  to  check  the  tears  rolling 
unheeded  down  her  cheeks.  Indeed,  she  had 
been  through  a  terrible  ordeal.  I  begged  her 
to  continue. 

"Then  I  was  taken  to  that  hotel  in  South 
State  Street  where  you  saw  me  standing  out- 
side the  entrance  and  nearly  spoke  to  me,"  she 
said.  "I  want  to  explain  the  reason  I  evaded 
you  and  went  into  the  building. 

"Tevis  was  just  a  few  feet  behind  you  stand- 
ing in  a  doorway.  He  told  me  he  knew  you 
were  after  me,  and  that  he  intended  to  kill 
you  the  first  chance  he  got.  His  idea  was  to 
do  the  shooting  away  from  the  levee,  because 
he  said  newspaper  notoriety  would  hurt  the 
'district.' 

"I  didn't  want  you  to  get  into  any  trouble 


232     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

over  me,  so  I  hurried  into  the  hotel  with  a 
man  I  knew,  a  friend  of  Tevis.  I  guess  Tevis 
never  saw  you  at  all. 

"Then  when  the  knock  came  at  the  door  I 
predicted  trouble;  so  did  the  hotel  keeper. 
The  noise  frightened  him  and  he  told  all  the 
roomers  to  leave  through  the  passageway 
which  led  to  the  alley.  The  policeman,  I  was 
told  afterward,  frightened  the  hotel  keeper. 

"Later  Tevis  took  me  to  a  dive,  and  when 
the  place  was  raided  we  were  both  taken  along 
with  a  number  of  girls  and  men." 

She  paused. 

"I  don't  believe  I  am  good  enough  to  go 
home,"  she  sobbed. 

We  talked  for  hours.  Finally  Mary  con- 
sented to  try  again.  She  wanted  to  see  her 
mother.  I  saw  a  Municipal  Judge,  and  the 
girl  was  set  free.  I  took  her  to  my  home,  and 
then  telegraphed  to  her  mother. 


THE  ESCAPE  233 

The  following  morning  her  mother  came. 
The  maid  brought  her  to  the  room  where 
Mary  and  I  were  sitting.  She  was  a  frail 
little  woman,  with  Mary's  large  soft  eyes, 
somewhat  dimmed,  and  her  face  lined  and 
seamed  by  life's  hard-fought  battles. 

"Mary!"  she  cried. 

"Mother!" 

The  two  were  clasped  in  each  other's  arms. 
I  withdrew  unnoticed  from  the  room.  When 
I  returned  I  found  them  sitting  close,  MaryJs 
head  resting  on  her  mother's  breast.  And  the 
mother — peace  had  come  to  her  at  last. 

"You're  going  back  home  together?"  I 
asked — "back  to  Limaville?" 

"No,"  smiled  Mrs.  Holden,  "we're  going  on 
out  west — out  to  the  big  open  country.  We'll 
both  begin  our  lives  anew." 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

CONCLUSION 

MY  object  in  writing  these  chapters  has  been 
to  impress  my  readers  with  the  magnitude  of 
the  work  to  be  done  if  there  is  to  be  any  effec- 
tive reform  and  to  rouse  them  from  a  view- 
point too  generally  accepted  that  the  social 
evil  has  existed  and  always  will  exist. 

Unfortunately  I  have  been  deterred  through 
the  inevitable  difficulties  that  beset  the  user  of 
plain  language  in  public  print  from  stating 
facts  as  plainly  as  they  should  be  stated  to 
penetrate  the  inner  consciousness  of  the  com- 
placent American  public. 

Certain  conditions  that  have  been  made 
plain  in  my  narrative  of  underworld  adven- 
ture must  needs  shriek  in  the  ears  of  all  good 
men  and  women  for  immediate  reform.  It  is 

234 


CONCLUSION  235 

not  to  be  believed  that  the  people  will  be  con- 
tent to  submit  very  much  longer  to  the  pres- 
ence of  a  band  of  prowling  wolves,  tolerated 
by  courts  and  protected  by  rascally  lawyers, 
whose  acknowledged  trade  is  the  destruction 
of  feminine  virtue  and  whose  whole  activity 
is  directed  to  the  exploitation  of  little  girls 
adrift. 

It  is  unbelievable  that  mothers  and  fathers 
will  continue  to  tolerate  a  police  system  which 
admits  its  futility  and  corruptness  when  it 
cannot  lodge  in  jail  such  widely  known  scoun- 
drels as  "Ike  the  Kike,"  and  hundreds  of 
lesser  satellites  who  operate  year  in  and  year 
out  against  every  principle  of  human  decency 
and  virtue. 

It  is  a  hard  thing  to  say,  but  there  are  few 
mothers  in  Chicago  who  really  know  their 
daughters  and  even  fewer  fathers  who  know 
their  sons.  We  all  like  to  theorize  and  emo- 

.4 

tionalize  over  the  beautiful  sentiment  of  the 


236     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

idea  that  American  mothers  are  their  daugh- 
ters' confidantes — that  the  American  son  is  the 
chum  of  his  father.  The  facts  are  contrari- 
wise. 

How  many  mothers  in  Chicago  know  who 
the  young  men  are  with  whom  their  daughters 
spend  the  evenings  away  from  home?  How 
many  fathers  ever  concern  themselves  at  all  as 
to  the  associations  formed  by  their  sons? 

If  there  ever  was  a  time  when  the  girl  in 
the  family  needed  for  her  protection  every  re- 
source of  motherhood  that  time  is  the  present. 
There  never  was  a  time  in  the  world's  history 
when  vice  was  so  highly  specialized.  The 
System,  with  its  octopus-like  arms,  is  in  need 
of  thousands  of  girls  annually.  It  recruits 
them  from  all  classes  of  society. 

And  speaking  of  fathers — there  are  not 
many,  I  think,  among  the  million  in  this  city 
who  make  any  effort  to  direct  the  pleasures  or 
associations  of  their  sons.  In  thousands  of  in- 


CONCLUSION  237 

stances  the  sons  of  families  that  have  every 
resource  of  wealth  and  culture  are  mere 
hounds  of  the  pave — their  principal  recrea- 
tion the  pursuit  of  young  girls. 

No  man's  business  is  so  important  that  he 
can  afford  to  let  his  daughter  drift  into  evil 
associations  or  his  son  become  a  criminal  drug 
fiend,  because,  forsooth,  the  ticker  keeps  up 
so  perpetual  a  ticking.  Better  tear  out  the 
ticker  entirely  and  farm  garden  truck  on  a 
ten-acre  patch  outside  of  town  with  a  happy, 
well-protected  family  than  reap  a  ticker  for- 
tune that  cannot  buy  back  the  purity  of  one 
lost  sister  nor  restore  the  moral  fiber  of  a  dis- 
eased and  drunken  son. 

Many  Americans  realize  too  late  that  in 
their  scramble  for  wealth  they  have  overlooked 
the  real  happiness  and  contentment  of  life 
which  has  all  the  time  been  accessible.  A 
million  dollars  will  not  repair  the  wreckage 
of  a  neglected  family. 


238     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

In  this  hurry-up  age  we  are  too  prone  to 
neglect  the  substance  for  the  shadow — to  grasp 
at  a  mirage  while  paying  too  little  attention 
to  the  ground  that  is  under  foot. 

For  the  running  down  and  eradication  of 
commercialized  vice  must  be,  as  it  is  now  in 
fact  becoming,  a  governmental  duty.  The 
federal  government's  activities  in  that  direc- 
tion have  already  been  more  effective  than  all 
the  dubious  works  of  municipalities  for  fifty 
years,  and  the  government  has  only  awakened 
to  a  sense  of  its  responsibilities  within  the  last 
few  years.  There  would  be  more  joy  in 
heaven  over  the  capture  and  lifelong  incar- 
ceration of  "Ike  the  Kike,"  than  over  any 
other  thing  that  could  happen  in  a  backward 
community. 

A  chorus  of  angels  would  sing  with  joy  over 
the  destruction  of  such  charnel  houses  as  the 
Cafe  Sinister,  The  Torpedo  Cafe  and  The 


CONCLUSION  239 

Cave,  and  the  police  protected  saloon  back 
rooms  with  their  overhead  hells. 

We  have  many  excellent  women's  clubs  en- 
gaged in  many  excellent  works,  but  there  is 
one  great  woman's  job  to  be  done  which  will 
demand  all  the  resources  of  all  the  women's 
clubs,  all  the  church  organizations,  all  the 
priests  and  ministers,  all  the  sociologists  and 
lay  preachers  of  this  talkative  decade. 

That  big  job  is  the  eradication  of  the  social 
evil  in  its  commercial  aspect  at  least.  As  long 
as  the  clubs  and  other  organizations  act  sepa- 
rately and  discuss  separately  and  resolve 
separately  there  will  be  no  effective  reform. 
What  is  needed  is  a  tremendous  wave  of  fem- 
inine public  opinion  that  shall  sweep  this 
country  from  end  to  end  and  force  the  hands 
of  the  government  officials  to  protect  Ameri- 
can womanhood  before  any  less  important 
matters  are  taken  up.  Before  we  rage  over 


240     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

minor  grievances  of  the  sex  let  us  redress  this 
great  grievance.  We  can  do  it  by  a  nation- 
wide campaign  of  woman's  organizations  com- 
bined into  one  tremendous  force. 

This  is  the  one  country  in  the  world  where 
such  a  great,  unified  movement  is  at  present 
practicable.  The  campaign  for  woman's  suf- 
frage and  its  marvelous  successes  by  ordinary 
peaceful  methods  in  the  United  States  are 
sufficient  indication  of  the  results  that  could 
be  achieved  with  all  women  throughout  the 
country  united  upon  an  object  that  could  find 
no  single  opponent  among  the  good  women  of 
the  land. 

A  legitimate  good  time  is  what  young  peo- 
ple want.  Because  they  can't  get  it  they  get 
into  all  kinds  of  trouble  and  misfortune. 
Wholesome  recreation  is  the  most  important 
feature  to  provide  in  reclamation  work.  It  is 
so  important  that  a  city  should  undertake  to 
supply  it. 


CONCLUSION  241 

There  are  not  enough  recreation  centers  to 
keep  children  out  of  alleys.  The  city  should 
provide  parks  that  will  accommodate  chil- 
dren. Recreation  centers  should  be  supplied 
by  the  municipality,  not  left  to  commercial- 
ized interests. 

In  the  vice  districts  we  find  victims  of  the 
maladjustment  of  society.  Society  is  respon- 
sible for  these  victims.  When  a  family  of 
seven  is  herded  into  two  rooms  it  is  not  to  be 
wondered  at  that  the  girl  living  in  these  con- 
ditions becomes  depraved. 

Is  it  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  mother  who 
is  obliged  to  cook  in  a  windowless  kitchen  be- 
comes so  nervous  and  irritable  that  she  con- 
tinually scolds?  Is  it  any  wonder  that  the 
children  leave  home?  Is  not  society,  with  its 
inadequate  housing  laws,  mostly  to  blame? 

The  system  of  fining  offenders  makes  it 
necessary  for  these  women  to  continue  living 
immoral  lives  in  order  to  pay  fines.  The  law 


242     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

defeats  its  own  purpose.  Every  offender 
should  be  sentenced  to  a  state  vocational  farm 
and  given  industrial  training  after  examina- 
tion as  to  mental  condition  has  determined  the 
possibilities  of  reform. 

This  would  keep  decreasing  the  number  of 
women  who  make  their  living  by  evil  methods. 
If  the  sixty  per  cent,  of  such  women  said  by 
the  statistics  to  be  mentally  deficient  were 
taken  out  of  the  ranks,  sent  into  farm  institu- 
tions and  treated  scientifically,  there  would  fol- 
low a  rapid  improvement  in  the  situation  that 
now  appalls  society. 

In  suggesting  a  remedy  for  the  evils  to 
which  I  have  tried  to  direct  attention  in  the 
preceding  chapters  of  this  story  I  feel  that  it  is 
incumbent  upon  me  to  admit  the  difficulties 
that  confront  workers  for  sociological  reform, 
both  as  to  the  formation  of  a  plan  which  shall 
meet  the  approval  of  all  religious  denomina- 
tions and  as  to  the  methods  by  which  such  a 


CONCLUSION  243 

plan  may  be  put  into  practical  and  effective 
operation. 

It  strikes  me  that  the  most  important  essen- 
tial to  a  better  state  of  public  morals  is  con- 
structive rather  than  reconstructive  action — 
that  is  to  say,  we  must  prevent  the  turning  out 
of  untaught  children  from  the  public  schools 
instead  of  waiting  until  these  children  have 
become  versed  in  evil  and  then  attempting  to 
apply  remedial  measures. 

In  brief,  we  are  placing  the  cart  before  the 
horse.  Instead  of  teaching  boys  and  girls  the 
essential  truths  about  those  physiological  proc- 
esses of  nature  which  most  parents  religiously 
lie  about  and  conceal,  we  leave  them  to  find  out 
in  the  bitter  school  of  experience  what  should 
have  been  impressed  upon  them  plainly  but 
tactfully  as  an  integral  part  of  their  school 
training. 

I  consider  the  teaching  of  sex  hygiene  in 
every  public  school  in  the  United  States  the 


244     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

first  essential  to  a  wide  and  general  improve- 
ment in  public  morals.  There  is  no  disguis- 
ing the  fact  that  the  mystery  thrown  about  sex 
in  our  present  system  of  child-teaching  makes 
for  pruriency  and  promotes  evil. 

Education,  then,  is  the  basis  of  the  remedy. 
Given  sound  instruction  in  early  youth,  the 
child  of  either  sex  is  forearmed  as  well  as  fore- 
warned. 

A  girl  so  grounded  in  the  essentials  of  sex 
knowledge  is  far  less  likely  to  fall  a  victim  to 
sex-emotion  than  a  girl  whose  ideas  of  sex  are 
fogged  in  mystery  which  native  curiosity  may 
solve  to  her  own  destruction  and  to  the  bitter 
sorrow  of  her  posterity. 

The  boy  who  has  been  taught  respect  for  and 
comprehension  of  the  sex  relation  is  certain  to 
acquire  a  broader  and  manlier  view  than  that 
which  is  born  of  "gang"  discussions. 

At  all  events,  the  best  authorities  of  this 
period  in  the  world's  advancement  are  agreed 


CONCLUSION  245 

that  a  marked  improvement  is  observable  in 
the  moral  tone  of  both  boys  and  girls  who  have 
received  such  instruction. 

I  am  quite  aware  that  there  are  many  ob- 
jectors to  the  theory  of  general  sex  instruction 
on  the  score  that  parents  are  the  most  com- 
petent instructors  of  their  own  children  in  such 
matters.  And  this  is  very  true  as  far  as  it 
goes,  but  the  trouble  is  that  it  does  not  go  far 
enough.  It  is  the  lamentable  fact  that  there 
are  far  more  incompetent  than  competent 
parents,  and  the  net  result  is  that  children  in 
the  mass  are  left  to  find  out  for  themselves 
through  all  sorts  of  doubtful  channels  the 
fundamental  facts  of  life. 

While  we  are  upon  this  phase  of  the  situa- 
tion I  will  take  occasion  to  declare  that  the 
conditions  in  many  of  our  public  schools,  as 
far  as  the  morals  of  the  boys  and  girls  attend- 
ing them  are  concerned,  may  well  be  con- 
sidered appalling. 


246     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

We  find  in  many  instances  after  girls  from 
thirteen  to  fifteen  years  are  taken  to  the  Ju- 
venile Court  on  charges  of  immorality  that 
they  became  depraved  while  little  more  than 
babies,  through  associations  in  the  public 
schools.  If  there  exists  in  the  mind  of  the 
person  who  has  read  this  book  a  doubt  con- 
cerning the  accuracy  of  this  statement,  I  refer 
such  doubters  to  Judge  Mary  Bartelme  of  the 
Child's  Court,  who  will  bear  me  out  in  it  and 
supply  detail  sufficient  to  convince  any  skep- 
tic. 

The  Christian  church  must  bestir  itself. 
The  modern  spirit  among  churches  is  directed 
toward  promotion  of  good  citizenship,  purer 
city  government,  the  elevation  of  political 
standards.  In  pulpits  all  over  Chicago  minis- 
ters are  preaching  the  gospel  of  civics.  They 
are  urging  the  election  to  office  of  worthy  men. 
They  are  inspiring  a  new  type  of  Christian 
leadership  among  young  men  and  women  who 


CONCLUSION  247 

are  regular  attendants  of  the  churches,  but 
they  are  not  beginning  at  the  beginning. 

The  big  problem  is  to  reach  that  great  body 
of  boys  and  girls  that  scorns  the  doors  of  the 
church  because  of  the  stiff-collared  religion 
that  is  dispensed  behind  them.  To  reach  these 
young  people  the  policy  of  the  Christian 
church  will  have  to  be  radically  changed.  I 
mean  that  part  of  its  policy  which  concerns 
the  care  and  government  of  its  youth.  To 
appeal  to  these  young  people  the  human  side 
of  the  church  must  be  emphasized.  The  ab- 
stract does  not  appeal.  The  need  for  reality 
in  religion  is  what  is  felt  by  the  thousands  of 
boys  and  girls  now  adrift  in  Chicago,  subject 
to  no  church  influence  whatever.  The  church 
that  is  beginning  to  incorporate  ideas  of  social 
service  is  that  church  which  brings  God  to  the 
people. 

Our  problem  is  a  deep  one  and  no  human 
being  can  dictate  a  sovereign  remedy  for  the 


248     MY  BATTLES  WITH  VICE 

ills  of  society.  Everybody  knows  that  we 
should  abolish  the  grafting  policeman,  the 
grafting  politician,  the  disreputable  hotel  and 
the  low  dance  hall,  but  these  are  all  part  and 
parcel  of  The  System. 

To  abolish  The  System  we  shall  have  to 
work  systematically  through  the  cooperation 
of  the  churches  and  religious  and  social  or- 
ganizations. And  the  basis  for  reform  must 
be  educational,  beginning  with  the  children 
in  the  schools. 

If  we  do  the  work  that  plainly  awaits  us  we 
shall  have  taken  a  long  step  toward  saving 
those  thousands  of  girls  who  are  every  year 
recruited  into  the  army  of  little  lost  sisters. 


THE  END 


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